18th January 2017 - The Grand Wassail

WASSAILING – A TRADITION REBORN

The night of 18 January was relatively mild, which was just as well as the newly formed Eastington Wassailers were preparing to meet and greet an old Gloucestershire Underleaf apple tree in Nastend, show appreciation for the many years of fruitful production, and wish for a good crop in the season to come.  Proceedings were accompanied by old wassail songs, and greatly helped along by lashings of mulled cider – from local apples of course!

The word Wassail come from the Anglo-Saxon greeting, meaning ‘be in good health’.  It is unknown how old the tradition is, but the origins are surely in Pagan times, in common with many other pre-Christian Winter festivities.  It was our intention to bring this tradition back to life in the Parish, as has been happening all over the apple-growing parts of the country.

In fact, there are different types of wassailing.  In one tradition you visit the neighbours, singing and offering them a drink from a wooden wassail bowl in exchange for food. This has largely been replaced by carolling. We were more interested in the other ancient custom where you visit apple orchards and sing to the trees to promote a good harvest.  However, such a jaunt seemed a bit ambitions for our first outing, so we chose the old Underleaf to represent all the trees in the Parish, including the community orchard at Coneygree near the church (and trees yet to be planted at the new Brownings site, behind the Kings Head!)

We had selected 3 wassail songs to sing: one from our own county, one from Norfolk and a last from our neighbouring county, Somerset.  After the second song our Wassail Queen, Charlotte Cousins, poured mulled cider around the roots of the tree and then placed a piece of toast soaked in cider in the branches.  This is to thank the tree and to encourage good spirits.  We then sang the final song (below) and finished off by making a raucous din (including banging old dustbins), intended to drive away evil spirits.

Such goings on in darkest Nastend might seem a bit wacky or indulgent, but such a ceremony reminds us that we should not take nature for granted, but should value and protect it.  After all, with no apple trees there would be none of our lovely locally-produced juice and cider!

Old apple tree, we wassail thee

And hope that thou wilt bear

For the Lord doth know where we shall be

Come apples come another year.

For to bloom well and to bear well

So merry let us be

Let every man take off his hat and shout out

To the old apple tree:

All to shout:

Old apple tree, we wassail thee

And hope that thou wilt bear

Hatfuls, capfuls and three bushel bagfuls

And a little heap under the stair.

Three cheers for the apple tree.  Hip hip hooray!

Julian Plested

Photos by Andy Harris

Photos by Andy Harris