‘Hats full, caps full!’ It’s wassail time
‘Here we come a-wassailing among the leaves so green;
Here we come a-wandering, so fair to be seen.
Now is winter time, strangers travel far and near
And we wish you, send you, a happy new year.’
Us leading the community Wassail for Glastonbury Abbey, 2020. The 16th Jan 2022 will see our return.
This is the time of wassail, the homespun, hugger-mugger, rollicking, bucolic entertainment to put a few extra pennies in the pockets of farm labourers who lived with a degree of poverty we can’t even imagine today. To give some context: it’s hard for us to realise that many farm labourers volunteering for the army in the first world war were so under-nourished they were deemed unfit for active service. My grandad, skinny as a rake, was one who got through and, come 1918, was lucky to have… come through. With this degree of poverty, getting extra pennies for your beer money was a serious business, and, come January when the work of the farm slackened off, wassailing was a fun and hopefully lucrative community sport.
Into the medieval past, it was held on 5th January, but today we celebrate around 17th January – the ‘old 12th’ before the calendars were altered in 1752 and 11 consecutive dates were jettisoned to bring us into line with most of Europe. This ‘12th’ is twelfth night, the end of the medieval holiday period and the time the three Magi rolled up to the Nativity to present their gifts, also called Epiphany (revelation) as the night that Jesus was revealed for the first time to Gentiles. Not so significant in these secular times or to a largely Pagan audience, but very significant for our forebears. And whatever the exact date we choose, we’ll be wassailing around the time of mumming plays and the traditions of Plough Monday – when a plough was dragged around the community to collect money.
For the origins and traditions attached to the wassail see the poster at the bottom of this blog…
Scroll down for a ceremony template with suggested songs, blessings and chants.
The point is, wassail brought the whole community together. It belonged – and belongs – to everyone.
CHORUS: For it’s your wassail and it’s our wassail
And its joy be to you and a jolly wassail.
So on with the preparations…some background, key components and a ceremony template for you.Wassail! Drink Hail!
What is a wassail?
Briefly, it’s singing to your orchard, your fruit tree in the patio container, the apple tree in the neighbour’s garden or any of the millions of fruit trees that grow unnoticed, unharvested, right in the middle of most cities. And if we can surround that singing with the panoply of historically celebrated activities, so much the better. They come from our Norse heritage and from the peasantry’s deep relationship with the land. I’m not glamourising this: it may have been a reluctant one, hard, cold, impoverished and fraught with problems, but it was intimate!
Why wassail the trees?
Post solstice and Christmas, at a time for planning and looking forward the spring season in the garden and fields that will supply the food we eat, we remember the living earth and trees when the world is dormant. We take time to praise, honour and thank them. Although it is too early for the trees to wake up and spring into new growth, what we do may gently infiltrate their deep dreaming, and perhaps turn their attention to the year ahead, and a glorious harvest.
I connect to the mode of the trees through my most appreciated sleep – that one where a slight disturbance around encourages us to sink back into the deepest, most satisfying slumber, to set us up for the activity of the day ahead…and suppose that disturbance was a trusted friend telling us how appreciated and loved we are? When we think this way, we are using the skills we’ve learnt in connecting to other humans to commune with their tree spirits. Music and song is a magical bridge to communication, no matter what age, ability or species and, at a hard time of year, we’re also re-establishing connection with our local community in a joyous celebration.
Planning your wassail
Bearing in mind that our celebration or ceremony can be as simple or complex, as discreet or flamboyant as we wish, let’s get planning…
The key components of a modern wassail are:
A wish to honour the gifts of the fruiting trees
Cider or apple juice
Toast
Percussive instruments
Traditional song(s) and chants which
Bless the trees
Address the trees directly, and in a respectful way
Promise health to the humans who support the wassail
May reference goods, chattels and livestock to be included in the blessing
The toast Wassail! Drink hail!’ punctuating the proceedings. It means, Be in good health! Drink good health!
A libation (drink poured out as an offering) and a gift of toast for the trees and wildlife
A drink of cider or apple juice for the human community and good fellowship
At some wassail ceremonies guns are fired to scare away evil spirits. As Druids, we relate back to ceremonial practice that predates firearms by many centuries: and, as we consider the land spirits beneficent, we do not use them and do not feel the need to scare anything away.
Wassail - solo or group? Your choice
If solitary, you can craft whatever seems appropriate, at whatever time of day, whenever you feel the call of the earth that holds the trees’ stability. Solo is good, but if you have one or two close friends or neighbours, do consider inviting them. Your daring might be rewarded with a fabulous community experience. You do not need dozens of trees: a lone apple or pear tree in the garden is just as worthy of honour as a commercial orchard.
The simplest ceremony is of noticing and connecting, singing and sharing a drink with a single tree. Done with attention and sincerity, it is a wonderful experience: do try!
The wassail template below can be used for a ceremony for groups or adapted for solo work. It is the basics of the ceremony I’ve devised over the years of wassailing the Glastonbury Abbey. If there are several of you, give everyone something to do. There are no spectators at a wassail, everyone is involved.
Template for a ceremony
Beforehand: Set out your wassail cup and toast by your end place. Have percussion and song sheets. (Find links to the songs at the end of this ceremony). Dress up a little – perhaps with greenery to suit the spirit of the occasion - including a hat to doff.
When you are ready to start:
Stand at a respectful distance from your first tree.
Invite all to:
breathe with the earth beneath you, the air above you, the waters all around.
Feel that you are entering a timeless communion with the spirit of green life in the trees.
Then set your intent by reciting a traditional rhyme, for example:
Wassaile the trees, that they may beare
You many a Plum and many a Peare:
For more or lesse fruits they will bring,
As you do give them Wassailing.
Gently shake or bang your percussion as you walk to the first (or only) tree. When you are almost there, stop and sing to it.
OLD APPLE TREE
Old apple tree, we wassail thee
And hoping thou wilt bear.
For who does know where we shall be
When apples come this year.
For to blow well and to bear well
So merry let us be.
Let every one take off their hat
Here’s a health to the old apple tree.
(Repeat last lines whilst bowing and doffing hat)
Sing your choice of wassail songs as you start to walk the circumference of your orchard, or process round your tree a few times, stopping frequently on the choruses, and ending each time with the toast & response ‘Wassail! Drink hail!’ (Be in good health! Drink good health!)
Return to the beginning, or the centre of your orchard.
Fill mugs with cider or juice: sing and toast the trees. Toast & response ‘Wassail! Drink hail!’
(If you want to stop after this, pour some cider over the tree(s) and put toast soaked in cider into the tree branches, using your own words to praise them, then scroll down to *** to conclude.)
To add to the ceremony, be as creative as you wish; it’s up to you. You might like to share our practice of
Blessing the trees with the elements of the quarters, turning to each in turn.
You can devise something lyrical and powerful in advance, using these or other associations…
The north: the deep and fruitful earth of winter
The east: the pollinating insects and winds of spring
The South: the ripening of the sun in summer
The West: the swelling fruit during the rains of autumn
Element apples, Arthur Billington
After each quarter blessing, libate the tree in that direction, or splash the N, E, S and W of a single tree and place some toast soaked in cider or juice in the branches or by the bole or trunk.
Then we always ask ‘Who will praise the trees?’ And encourage people to shout out their reasons: ‘I will praise them for their….’ (flowers, fruit, scent, nourishment, beauty & etc. etc.) As things slow up, toast one last time, then
*** Conclude with thanks and appreciation – make up using your own connections, or use ours:
Dear orchard, dear trees, know that you are honoured here, for all your gifts.
As the trees sink back to rest,
May this orchard be fruitful and blessed….
Retreat, singing. We finish with the one the one we started with, ‘Old apple Tree…’
Turn and bow from a distance to finish.
I wish you joy of this ritual. If you use it for others, please tell them that where it’s from, and that it’s in regular use for the Glastonbury Abbey Orchard wassail. We have no doubt that it helps to promote their bumper crops. It is done!
***
It’s easy to find the lyrics of the wassail songs to print out for your guests. Here are some links to the melodies which you might send them in advance. Do not be intimidated: this is about singing with all our hearts!
But please do also click onto this cracking, contemporary pop version of Here we come awassailing, for the fun of the season, courtesy of group Under the Streetlamp - stars in shiny jackets!
Joy of the wassail to all. If you can’t get out, enjoy reading the traditional associations of the festival below, eat apples and dream of the sleeping orchards, as you send your love to the rich earth.
And that’s a good thing to do, no matter what the season! Until Imbolc, Blessings, Penny /|\
