Wassailing is an English tradition to extend holiday cheer

Ready, set…wassail. The holiday season is the reason for all of England to imbibe by drinking from large bowls of wassail…as long as winter lasts.

The beverage is a concoction of mulled ale, curdled cream, roasted apples, eggs, cloves, ginger, nutmeg and sugar…and served warm. The drink was considered an “elixir of life.” 

The translation of “wassail” is: “Be in good health.” The brew was sometimes called “Lamb’s Wool,” because the pulp of the roasted apples was frothy and looked a bit like the soft wool from a lamb. 

There was always singing and merriment to accompany the wassailing. Or was all that carrying on caused by the drinking of the wassail?

 

During the 1600s, in England’s cities, towns and villages, groups of yuletide merrymakers would go from one manor to another, carrying their wassail bowl in hand, singing traditional songs and generally spreading fun and good wishes…asking in return for more alcohol, figgy pudding and money.

 

As the traditional song, “Here We Come a-Wassailing,” tells us: 

We are not daily beggars

That beg from door to door;

But we are neighbours’ children,

Whom you have seen before.

 

Love and joy come to you,

And to you your wassail, too;

And God bless you and send you a Happy New Year.

 

Freelance journalist Lucas Reilley of Baltimore said: “At Christmastide, the poor expected privileges denied them at other times, including the right to enter the homes of the wealthy.” Here’s another verse:

 

Good master and good mistress,

While you’re sitting by the fire,

Pray think of us poor children

Who are wandering in the mire.

 

Jurist John Seldon (1584-1654) was a party pooper who expressed great disdain for wassailing. He said: “You must drink of the slabby stuff; but the meaning is, you must give them money.” 

The practice of wassailing was watered down in America to become known as “caroling,” sans the boozy bowls. 

Rural communities had a different form of wassailing. Where apples were grown in England, historian Ellen Castelow said: “People would bless the trees by going into the orchards, singing songs, making loud noises and dancing around to scare off any evil spirits.”

 

This activity would “‘wake up’ the trees so they will give a good crop” in the following autumn, according to Castelow. 

“It was also common to place toast, which had been soaked in wassail, into the boughs of the trees to feed and thank the trees for giving apples. That’s where the term to ‘toast’ someone with a drink comes from,” she said.

 

A common song by the orchard wassailers began:

 

Old Apple tree, we worship thee,

And hope that thou will bare

Hatfuls, capfuls and three bushel-bagfuls…

A little heap under the stairs.

Three cheers for the apple tree.

It took several centuries, but the orchard version of wassailing arrived in America in 2014, reported Jennifer Nalewicki for Smithsonian magazine. She said apple cider makers in New York state have begun to embrace wassailing as a new holiday season custom. 

Wassailing is a big production for the DeFisher family, owners of Rootstock Ciderworks in Williamson near Lake Ontario, east of Rochester, N.Y. This year’s celebration in the orchard will occur on Feb. 2, from 6-11 p.m. and features live music by the raucous six-member band “Banned From the Tavern.”