Wassail
Encyclopedia
The word Wassail refers to several related traditions; first and foremost wassailing
is an ancient southern English
tradition that is performed with the intention of ensuring a good crop of cider
apples for the next year's harvest. It also refers to both the salute 'Waes Hail', the term itself is a contraction of the Middle English
phrase wæs hæil, meaning literally 'good health' or 'be you healthy' and to the drink of wassail which is a hot mulled cider traditionally drunk as an integral part of the wassail ceremony.
often associated with Yuletide. Historically, the drink was a mulled cider made with sugar, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg and topped with slices of toast. Modern recipes begin with a base of wine, fruit juice, or mulled ale, sometimes with brandy or sherry added.
Apples or oranges are often added to the mix.
While the beverage typically served as "wassail" at modern holiday feasts with a medieval theme most closely resembles mulled cider
, historical wassail drinks were completely different, more likely to be mull
ed beer
or mead. Sugar
, ale
, ginger, nutmeg
, and cinnamon
would be placed in a bowl, heated, and topped with slices of toast
as sop
s.
Hence the first stanza of the traditional carol the Gloucestershire Wassail dating back to the Middle Ages
:
At Carhampton, near Minehead
, the Apple Orchard Wassailing is held on the Old Twelfth Night
(17 January) as a ritual to ask God for a good apple harvest. The villagers form a circle around the largest apple tree, hang pieces of toast soaked in cider in the branches for the robins, who represent the 'good spirits' of the tree. A shotgun is fired overhead to scare away evil spirits and the group sings, the following being the last verse:
by Eric Linklater
.
The British rock band Blur released a cover of the song, with each member taking a verse. The release was limited to 500 7 inch pressings, these were given out at a concert in 1992.
Wassail was featured on the BBC Two special Oz and Hugh Drink to Christmas which aired on Sunday, 20 December 2009. Oz Clarke and Hugh Dennis sampled the drink and the wassailing party in south west England as part of their challenge to find Britain's best Christmas drinks.
It was mentioned in the cult classic television show Mystery Science Theater 3000 in one of their sketches in between their heckling of awful films, the robot hosts ask their human captain to provide some, and when asked to further explain what exactly wassail was they admitted to having no idea, providing a guess it might be an 'anti inflammatory', and upon actually attaining some describe it as 'skunky' discovering it to be a 500 year old batch.
Wassailing
The tradition of Wassailing falls into two distinct categories: The House-Visiting wassail and the Orchard-Visiting wassail. House-Visiting wassail, very much similar to caroling, is the practice of people going door-to-door singing Christmas carols...
is an ancient southern English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
tradition that is performed with the intention of ensuring a good crop of cider
Cider
Cider or cyder is a fermented alcoholic beverage made from apple juice. Cider varies in alcohol content from 2% abv to 8.5% abv or more in traditional English ciders. In some regions, such as Germany and America, cider may be termed "apple wine"...
apples for the next year's harvest. It also refers to both the salute 'Waes Hail', the term itself is a contraction of the Middle English
Middle English
Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
phrase wæs hæil, meaning literally 'good health' or 'be you healthy' and to the drink of wassail which is a hot mulled cider traditionally drunk as an integral part of the wassail ceremony.
Wassailling
In the cider-producing counties in the South West of England (primarily Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Gloucestershire and Herefordshire) or South East England (Kent, Sussex and Essex) wassailing refers to a traditional ceremony that involves singing and drinking the health of trees in the hopes that they might better thrive. The purpose of wassailing is to awake the cider apple trees and to scare away evil spirits to ensure a good harvest of fruit in the Autumn. The ceremonies of each wassail vary from village to village but they generally all have the same core elements. A wassail King and Queen lead the song and/or a processional tune to be played/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 the fruits created the previous 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!
Wassail as a beverage
Wassail the beverage is a hot, mulled punchPunch (drink)
Punch is the term for a wide assortment of drinks, both non-alcoholic and alcoholic, generally containing fruit or fruit juice. The drink was introduced from India to England in the early seventeenth century; from there its use spread to other countries...
often associated with Yuletide. Historically, the drink was a mulled cider made with sugar, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg and topped with slices of toast. Modern recipes begin with a base of wine, fruit juice, or mulled ale, sometimes with brandy or sherry added.
Apples or oranges are often added to the mix.
While the beverage typically served as "wassail" at modern holiday feasts with a medieval theme most closely resembles mulled cider
Cider
Cider or cyder is a fermented alcoholic beverage made from apple juice. Cider varies in alcohol content from 2% abv to 8.5% abv or more in traditional English ciders. In some regions, such as Germany and America, cider may be termed "apple wine"...
, historical wassail drinks were completely different, more likely to be mull
Mulled wine
Mulled wine, variations of which are popular in Europe, is wine, usually red, combined with spices and typically served warm. It is a traditional drink during winter, especially around Christmas and Halloween.-Glühwein:...
ed beer
Beer
Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...
or mead. Sugar
Sugar
Sugar is a class of edible crystalline carbohydrates, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose, characterized by a sweet flavor.Sucrose in its refined form primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet...
, ale
Ale
Ale is a type of beer brewed from malted barley using a warm fermentation with a strain of brewers' yeast. The yeast will ferment the beer quickly, giving it a sweet, full bodied and fruity taste...
, ginger, nutmeg
Nutmeg
The nutmeg tree is any of several species of trees in genus Myristica. The most important commercial species is Myristica fragrans, an evergreen tree indigenous to the Banda Islands in the Moluccas of Indonesia...
, and cinnamon
Cinnamon
Cinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several trees from the genus Cinnamomum that is used in both sweet and savoury foods...
would be placed in a bowl, heated, and topped with slices of toast
Toast
Toast is bread that has been browned by exposure to radiant heat. This browning reaction is known as the Maillard reaction. Toasting warms the bread and makes it firmer, so it holds toppings more securely...
as sop
Sop
A sop is a piece of bread or toast that is soaked in liquid food and then eaten. In medieval cuisine, sops were very common. Sops were served with wine, soup or broth, and then picked apart into smaller pieces to soak in the liquid. At elaborate feasts, bread was often pre-cut into finger-sized...
s.
Hence the first stanza of the traditional carol the Gloucestershire Wassail dating back to the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
:
Wassail! wassail! all over the town,
Our toast it is white and our ale it is brown;
Our bowl it is made of the white maple tree;
With the wassailing bowl, we'll drink to thee.
At Carhampton, near Minehead
Minehead
Minehead is a coastal town and civil parish in Somerset, England. It lies on the south bank of the Bristol Channel, north-west of the county town of Taunton, from the border with the county of Devon and in proximity of the Exmoor National Park...
, the Apple Orchard Wassailing is held on the Old Twelfth Night
Twelfth Night (holiday)
Twelfth Night is a festival in some branches of Christianity marking the coming of the Epiphany and concluding the Twelve Days of Christmas.It is defined by the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary as "the evening of the fifth of January, preceding Twelfth Day, the eve of the Epiphany, formerly the...
(17 January) as a ritual to ask God for a good apple harvest. The villagers form a circle around the largest apple tree, hang pieces of toast soaked in cider in the branches for the robins, who represent the 'good spirits' of the tree. A shotgun is fired overhead to scare away evil spirits and the group sings, the following being the last verse:
Old Apple tree, old apple tree;
We've come to wassail thee;
To bear and to bow apples enow;
Hats full, caps full, three bushel bags full;
Barn floors full and a little heap under the stairs.
Lamb's wool
Lamb's wool or lambswool is a variety of wassail made from ale, baked apples, sugar and spices. It is mentioned in Poet's pubPoet's Pub
Poet's Pub is a 1949 British comedy film directed by Frederick Wilson.-Plot:An Oxford poet is convinced to become manager of a country inn, after complaining about the food and service.-Cast:*Derek Bond as Saturday Keith*Rona Anderson as Joanna Benbow...
by Eric Linklater
Eric Linklater
Eric Robert Russell Linklater was a British writer, known for more than 20 novels, as well as short stories, travel writing and autobiography, and military history.-Life:...
.
Next crowne the bowle full
With gentle Lambs wooll,
Adde sugar, nutmeg, and ginger,
With store of ale too,
And thus ye must doe
To make the Wassaile a swinger.
Culture
This drink would be roughly equivalent to beer or wine in many contemporary western cultures. People drank it at social gatherings. "Come butler, come fill us a bowl of the best/... please God send our master a good cask of ale..." sang throughout the towns of the Germanic nations, sending good luck to even one's own master in the new year.The British rock band Blur released a cover of the song, with each member taking a verse. The release was limited to 500 7 inch pressings, these were given out at a concert in 1992.
Wassail was featured on the BBC Two special Oz and Hugh Drink to Christmas which aired on Sunday, 20 December 2009. Oz Clarke and Hugh Dennis sampled the drink and the wassailing party in south west England as part of their challenge to find Britain's best Christmas drinks.
It was mentioned in the cult classic television show Mystery Science Theater 3000 in one of their sketches in between their heckling of awful films, the robot hosts ask their human captain to provide some, and when asked to further explain what exactly wassail was they admitted to having no idea, providing a guess it might be an 'anti inflammatory', and upon actually attaining some describe it as 'skunky' discovering it to be a 500 year old batch.