Do you want to ‘wake up’ some apple trees, so that you get a brilliant crop this year? Then you need to go a-wassailing and tonight is the night to do it.
Twelfth Night, the evening of 5th January, is the traditional time to go wassailing, although in some places 17th January is used as the date of this ceremony, because this was “Old Twelvey Night” before the Gregorian calendar was introduced (in 1752).
I grew up in Kent, the supposed ‘Garden of England’, where there were orchards around our home and, it seemed, everywhere you looked, but wassailing is not a big tradition there. The tonnes of apples that are grown there are mostly for eating, whereas wassailing is typically a ceremony more associated with fruit for drinking: cider apples and pears (perry). So orchard wassailing is concentrated in Somerset, Devon, Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire and Gloucestershire, although funnily enough the only wassailing event listed on the real-cider website is in East Yorkshire.
What is wassailing and how would you do it should you wish to?
Wassailing has been customary for over a thousand years. The word was included in the eighth-century poem Beowulf as a form of salute. It derives from the Old Norse ‘ves heil’ and the Old English ‘was hál’, meaning “be in good health” or “be fortunate”. The usual reply is ‘drinc hæl’. Wassailing an orchard refers to drinking (and singing) the health of trees in the hopes that they might do well and produce a good harvest.
People who practice wassailing often keep a special wassailing bowl to fill with spiced cider. The bowl may be ceramic or turned from wood. The Fitzwilliam museum in Cambridge has a fairly stunning earthenware example decorated with foxes, trees, chickens and people:
Ceremonies vary from location to location, but generally a wassail King and Queen take the lead in a song or tune, sung from one orchard to the next. The wassail Queen is lifted into the boughs of one of the trees (often the oldest) where she places pieces toast soaked in Wassail from the bowl as a gift to the tree spirits (and to show off the fruits borne last year). Then an incantation is usually recited such as
Here’s to thee, old apple tree,
That blooms well, bears well.
Hats full, caps full,
Three bushel bags full,
An’ all under one tree.
Hurrah! Hurrah!
The assembled crowd sing and shout and bang drums, pots and pans, making a terrible racket to scare away any evil spirits.
So that sounds fun and I though that I might go out tonight a drink a hot mulled cider toast to my apple trees, as much to give thanks for the crop that I am still enjoying, but hopefully encouraging the trees to thrive.
Fancy joining in?
Well this does sounds like a lot of fun, I hope you have a bumper crop this year!
Me too! I guess I should think about pruning them now
I checked out the link to the East Yorkshire Wassail group in Pickering Road, and found an interview on youtube. Small world, my family lived there for many years. Thanks for the post!
It’s incredible how often these coincidences happen. Did your family wassail?
I’ve heard wassailing songs around the solstice, but didn’t know exactly what it was. Thanks for enlightening me!
You are welcome. It was fun to check out and the idea started with a magazine article mentioning the ‘Real Cider’ website.
Absolutely! Cheers to the apple trees. And while we’re at it, to the peach trees, too. Can’t do any harm, can it?
Yes, hopefully it covered greengages and plums too. It would be wonderful to have peaches. Do you get a good crop?
Oh, they are dwarf peach trees, and I live in Berlin, which is quite far north. I was surprised, to see any fruit. They were small, but tasted good. Off two tiny tress, there were maybe seven fruit, sum total.
Amazing. Good luck with this years crop
What a great tradition. Celebrating with cider and song in the dark of night is just the sort of thing I would enjoy. But once a year would probably be enough!
Anything to cheer up the dark winter days, especially if you are storing up credit for the summer … and once was good fun.