The purpose of Wassailing is to awaken the apple trees from their Winter hibernation and to scare away evil spirits to ensure a good harvest of fruit next Autumn. But 2022 was a Mast Year (see here) and my Bramley, in particular, produced thousands (not an exaggeration) of apples - most of which I couldn't use or pass on.
So I wasn't particularly keen to ask for another big harvest.
This is what one day of windfalls looked like. And this happened every day.
I had to spend over half an hour gathering them up, binning the rotten or insect-infested ones, and putting the remainder out for my neighbours. I did leave a fair few on the lawn for the birds though - and I was rewarded with visits by flocks of Fieldfares and Redwings.
The problem is that Bramleys are no good for cider or drinking juice. And there are only so many pies, strudels and jars of apple sauce you can eat.
And that was just one tree. I have three.
Wassail comes from the Old English wes hál, meaning 'good health' .There are two main types of Wassail - the Christmastide Wassail and the Orchard Wassail. The Christmas Wassail was a way for the peasantry to ask for gifts from their feudal lords as a form of charitable giving, rather than begging. In Cornwall, where I grew up, there was a nine verse song called Here We Come A-wassailing that people sang as they went door-to-door collecting for charity. It began:
Now Christmas is comin'
And New Year begin
Pray open your doors
And let us come in.
With our wassail, wassail,
Wassail, wassail,
And joy come with our jolly wassail.
Orchard Wassailing traditionally takes place on Twelfth Night (either January 5th or 6th) or on 'Old Twelvey Night' (January 17th - as it would have been before the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar in 1752). But it often takes place any time between Christmas and today - like the Chepstow Wassail I wrote about on the 13th (see here).
Wassail practices vary from location to location but usually share a few core elements. A Wassail King and Queen lead the song and/or a processional tune played or sung from one orchard to the next. The Wassail Queen will then be lifted up into the boughs of the tree where she will place toast soaked in Wassail from the Clayen Cup as a gift to the tree spirits (and to show off the produce of the fruits from the previous year). Then an incantation (there are many variants) 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!
This incantation is followed by noise-making from the assembled crowd and, in some places, people with 12-bores fire a volley through the branches. However, this has been replaced in many cases with fireworks or cap guns. The crowd then moves onto the next orchard.
Wassail, incidentally, is a warm mulled cider spiced with orange, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, vanilla pod and cinnamon sticks. And a Clayen Cup or Wassail Bowl is a goblet or bowl - often made from apple wood or sycamore - from which the Wassail is drunk and poured. This is mine:
There are surviving examples of 'puzzle Wassail bowls', with many spouts. As you attempt to drink from one of the spouts, you are drenched from another spout. This one is in the Victoria and Albert Museum:
As the largest cider-producing region in the UK, the West Country hosts many historic annual Wassails, such as Whimple in Devon and Carhampton in Somerset, both on 17th January. Many new, commercial or 'revival' Wassails have also been introduced, such as those in Stoke Gabriel and Sandford, Devon. Clevedon in North Somerset holds an annual wassailing event at the Clevedon Community Orchard, combining the traditional elements of the festival with the entertainment and music of the Bristol Morris Men.
A folktale from Somerset tells of the Apple Tree Man, the spirit of the oldest apple tree in an orchard in whom the fertility of the orchard is thought to reside. In the tale, a man offers his last mug of mulled cider to the trees in his orchard and is rewarded by the Apple Tree Man who appears and reveals to him the location of buried gold.
So did I Wassail my trees yesterday?
Of course I did.
No sightings of the Apple Tree Man so far though.
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