Wassail! *


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.

Gloucester Wassail - believed to date back to the middle ages and also sung at traditional wassailing times in North Wiltshire.

Tonight is the old Twelfth Night**, one of the traditional times to hold a wassailing ceremony. Wassails are sung from around Christmas time until today's date and are centuries old.

The purpose of a wassailing ceremony - apart from a good excuse to cheer up the winter blues - is to awaken the apple trees from their slumbers, give thanks for the apple harvest and to drive away evil spirits to ensure the next is a good one.

Our choirmaster is very keen on wassail songs, which we've always sung as a 'Happy New Year' welcome to the January term, but Saturday was the first time we'd been invited to perform at a proper Wassailing ceremony. This was held at The Courts, one of Wiltshire's finest gardens and best kept National Trust secrets.

The Courts is in Holt and the village morris side were also there; it turns out morris dancing is also closely associated with wassailing. They danced The Rose Tree which should be done around the 'father of the orchard' (or king apple tree), but the one at The Courts is very low growing, so they danced it round their band instead. They then danced The Hollow Tree, with the finale being an assemblage of the dancers sticks to resemble a venerable hollow tree.

Then it was our turn: we started with the Malpas Wassail which hails from Cornwall, then the Gloucester Wassail as shown above. The Green Man, our master of ceremonies (with a bright green face and dressed in a bright red coat with sprigs of holly around his hat) then found his king and queen of the orchard (a young boy and girl) to help with proceedings.

This involved the dressing of the king tree with cider dipped toast for the robin (the guardian bird), the pouring of lots of cider on the tree in thanks, and to kick-off the noisy part of the ceremony with a bang from a pretend gun (some ceremonies use the real thing!).

We sang The Apple Wassail (which hails from Somerset), drank our fill from the wassail bowl and then followed the morris men around the orchard making as much noise as we possibly could. Our instruments included a farting trombone, lots of rattles made that very afternoon, a football rattle, a vuvuzela, various pots and pans and me banging away like mad on our paella pan with a wooden spoon. NAH thought this was a most appropriate use of our pan as it could be held and struck like a gong ;)

Our final song was The Gower Wassail, which we learned for Christmas 2009 when we sang at Stourhead's winter Festival of the Voice. 

More dancing ensued including a mass participation dance to round things off. I suddenly found myself on the dance floor wearing a morrisman's large bowler hat, a-waving and clapping and leaping in the air. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the moves we learnt will be included in future choir rehearsal warm ups!

With the ceremony over, we wended our way past the warming bonfire, the twinkling candles in the trees, the tealight lined pathway and back into today's world.

* = wassail is from the Anglo-Saxon 'waes hael' = "be in good health"

** = today twelfth night is January 6th: the 'old' twelfth night is 17th January which is when January 6th was before our current calendar was introduced in 1752. This 'lost' 11 days from the old calendar. The fact that 17th January is one of the key dates for wassailing and there are many regional wassailing songs suggests how far back this tradition reaches.

Comments

  1. Anonymous17 January 2011 at 17:13

    Sounds great. I love a wassail, me. We usually go to our local community orchard one but decided this year to have our own, so the toast and cider thing to our own allotment trees, and make a bit of a party of it at the same time. Alas it all came to nothing as I was too ill in the end. We will have another go, perhaps next weekend.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown17 January 2011 at 17:19

    I've never hear of that. Very interesting. You would think that some of those traditions would have made their way over here into the states. We've learned so many other traditions and holidays.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Camillap17 January 2011 at 17:36

    Hello VP - sounds like you've wassailed up a splendid harvest for the Courts with all those festivities. I went to my first Wassail this weekend at Chiswick House - we had samba drummers, instead of morris men, but then that felt right for London (after all, it's not long til Carneval season). I'll pass on your wassail songs so we can extend our singing repertoire next year.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ewa17 January 2011 at 17:52

    That is so interesting! I can see you got lots of dancing :)
    .
    Michelle could I ask you for help. I am looking for good seed producer in UK - maybe you could recommend somebody?
    .
    Ewa

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hermes17 January 2011 at 18:21

    I'd forgotten. Lovely post. Sunshine tomorrow according to the forecast. Had lots of emails about your solar farm proposals.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Damo17 January 2011 at 20:22

    That's an awful lot of wassailing! I must get along to one of these.

    ReplyDelete
  7. SteveC17 January 2011 at 20:47

    Coincidentally, I'm just in from wassailing at Barrington Court (also NT) in Somerset. We were morris dancing there (I don't know of any traditional link between morris dancing and wassailing but it's the sort of thing we're in to!).
    Big advantage of doing Barrington is that they make their own (rather good) cider on the site!
    Wassail!

    Steve

    ReplyDelete
  8. The bike shed17 January 2011 at 21:59

    I liked that. There is valley in Wales - The Gwaun - where the locals celebrate New Year, i Think on the 13th. It is something to do with Gregorian and Julian calendars and a might excuse to get roaring drunk!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Gardeningbren17 January 2011 at 23:49

    Really enjoyed the YouTube links...beautiful voices and no one with their music sheets up in front of their face))). You must be so enthused by your choirmaster..he is a good guide by the looks of it.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Unknown18 January 2011 at 09:05

    What a fun post! I seem to think a modified version of this happens in parts of newfoundland where outport darkness would whack their apple trees , scrub and wildisg tho they may be, with a broom to help it bear fruit. Probably some singing and dancing and imbibing of Screech would be involved as well.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Robert Webber18 January 2011 at 11:59

    Wot a fun event and how wonderful to have gardens used for this sort of thing.
    When I ran the Bot Garden in Bristol we held musical events and one magical time some very modern experimental dancing.
    A new dimension to the life of a garden!
    Best
    R

    ReplyDelete
  12. Carrie18 January 2011 at 12:03

    I would love to go to a wassailing! Drinking, singing, banging pots and pans = a good time. Lucky you!!!

    ReplyDelete
  13. petoskystone18 January 2011 at 13:55

    what a lovely post. thanks for the links. yea for bonfires!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Janet/Plantaliscious18 January 2011 at 16:26

    How fabulous! No speakers (propagator plugged in their slot) so will have to wait to listen to the clips, but sounds a wonderful experience. I've never been wassailing, I think I need to rectify that next year, though I like Lia's idea of doing a local one, maybe up at the community orchard...

    ReplyDelete
  15. Carolyn @ Carolyn's Shade Gardens19 January 2011 at 03:20

    I always wondered what the heck wassailing was all about and was too lazy to look it up myself. Thanks for the history, it's intriguing.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Garden Mum19 January 2011 at 10:32

    What an interesting post. I think we will have our own Wassailing ceremony for our apple trees next year. Our Little Garden Helpers would love it, I have already made a note of the date in my diary for next year!

    ReplyDelete
  17. VP21 January 2011 at 08:54

    Lia - hope you're feeling better. I was away on Monday so didn't get up to the allotment to wassail my own trees. I must do that this weekend :)

    Cinj - I bet somewhere the wassailing tradition's there or some derivation of it!

    Camillap - I saw that one advertised. I t sounds like you had a fab time - I like the idea of samba drummers :)

    Ewa - what kind of seeds are you looking for? Flowers, herbs, veg, organic?

    Hermes - I was reading about that yesterday, it's going to be not far from where we are. I must investigate a bit more

    Damo - do go - I think you andyour family would enjoy it :)

    SteveC - Wassail! I've sampled the Barrington Court brew - it's rather good :)

    Mark - yep it's the change from the 2 calendars. 11 days was 'lost' and there were protests on the streets about it at the time!

    Gardeningbren - thanks. We're encouraged not to use them and I was surprised how many were in evidence when I looked at the video again. Chris is great!

    Jodi - tree whacking sometimes happens here too and definitely much imbibing of screech!

    Robert - I've very rarely visited a garden in the dark. We definitely need more opportunities to do so!

    Carrie - perhaps you could have one round your apple trees on your allotment. Something to look forward to in January?

    Petoskystone - thanks :)

    Plantaliscious - definitely worth doing at your community orchard :)

    Carolyn - welcome! Glad you enjoyed it :)

    Garden Mum - hello! Have a fab time and be sure to tell us all about it :)

    ReplyDelete

New comments are not allowed.

Your essential reads

That blue flower: A spring spotter's guide

Image
Spring is a prime time for blue flowers and my daily walks currently have several from the same plant family* lining the local footpaths. As I walked past the Donkey Field the other day, I overheard some children ask their parents** what the pictured blue flower was. It reminded me it's often mistaken for those other familial blues and this time was no different, as they said it was forget-me-not, instead of the green alkanet it actually is. As well as similar flowers, most of these plants are hairy in their nature, flower around the same time, and favour damp, shady places. Many of them are great for pollinators too, especially bees and this week's warm weather has certainly drawn them to these flowers. This makes it even more likely for these plants to be mistaken for each other and it's a great opportunity for me to put together a spotter's guide in case you find the same flowers on your outings. Staying with green alkanet, the key features which set it
Read more

Jack Go To Bed At Noon

Image
Last year this rather exotic looking flower appeared on mine and several other allotments for the first time. Having been stumped (again) by Mr Allotment Warden as to its identity, I rushed home to find out what it was. It's salsify, aka the marvellous Jack Go To Bed At Noon - named as such because its flowers always close by midday. Here you can see both open and closed flowers - making it seem even more exotic and alien than in the first picture. I think this must be the cultivated version because the flower in my Francis Rose Wild Flower Key looks exactly the same in form, but is bright yellow in colour and called meadow salsify . Its other common name is Goatsbeard, which must be a nod to the fantastic dandelion-like clock which forms the seed head. With 'parachutes' like those shown above, who knows how far our plotted plants came from. I rather like the photographic dissection of the seedhead found in this link . Salsify is edible: its lateral shoots and fl
Read more

Red Nose Day - Gardening Jokes Anyone?

Image
The nation goes ever so slightly bonkers on Red Nose Day - hurrah! Previously, it's been very easy to join in - usually via a dress down day at work plus lots of people up to mad things at the station and in the office. Everyone smiling for once - it's a real feel good day and all in a good cause. This year's different - every day's a dress down day for me now - my friend L suggested yesterday that perhaps I could have a dress up day instead and whilst that's a good idea, I confess that ballgowns and tiaras don't really feature in my wardrobe: scruffy student's always been my favourite look. So my Red Nose Day contribution for this year is to compile a list of gardening related jokes. For each one (clean ones only please) you leave in the comments below, I'll make a donation of 50p to the cause. Here's a few for starters just to get you warmed up: Q Why do potatoes make good detectives? A Because they keep their eyes peeled. Q What did the grape
Read more

Salad Days: Mastering Lettuce

Image
I've decided one of my salad challenges for this year is to grow as many lettuce varieties as I can, ready for the publication of my planned Factsheet* later on. The idea is to grow as many of the Tried and Trusted lettuce varieties last year's Salad Challengers helped compile, then provide a visual guide and as many lettuce facts as I can muster. So far I've found around half of those listed**. Then naturally whilst I was out searching - because such is the way with seeds - a number of other varieties found their way home too ;) A couple of weeks ago I sowed 22 varieties***. Just the simple act of sowing them has me intrigued. Why are some lettuce seeds black and others white****? They split into about half white to half black in my sample and as far as I can tell it's nothing to do with whether they're a type of cos, iceberg, or whatever. I sowed them indoors and popped them into a propagator on the windowsill. The soil's too cold outside for sowing
Read more

VPs VIPs: Derry Watkins of Special Plants

Image
Last week I had the pleasure of visiting Derry Watkins at her home, garden and nursery - the acclaimed Special Plants - just a few miles along the road from me. I first met Derry at one of her open garden days last year and was keen to find out more about her wonderful garden and running an independent nursery. She specialises in tender perennials and regularly goes on plant hunting trips to find new treasures, particularly in South Africa. As well as running Special Plants and opening her garden under the NGS scheme , Derry holds day courses at her nursery, hosts Special Tuesdays from April until September, lectures and has written a couple of books. How did you find your way from Connecticut to the UK? I'd started a biodynamic vegetable garden in Connecticut and we used to have people come along at weekends to help out. A particular young man turned up: he returned many times and at the end of the summer I married him. So it was all down to love? Isn't that the
Read more

#mygardenrightnow: heading into summer with the Chelsea Fringe

Image
Ahhhhhh, that's better! I love walking through dewy grass in bare feet, not that there's much in the way of grass on my back lawn this weekend. My wild and woolly lawn has morphed into meadow of sorts this month, which even NAH admits looks attractive*. It's also proved a great source for my Flowers for mum project so far, yielding self-sown perennial cornflowers, lamb's ears, and lemon balm in addition to the blooms you can see. These originated from elsewhere in the garden, the ox-eye daisies must have blown in from the A350 nearby. * = he got very stroppy about the weeds aka self-sown foxgloves in the lawn one year, so he's come along a bit since then. Skimble's demanding to say hello to you too. He does enjoy the patio when it warms up. If the embedded video doesn't work try this link instead. The Nectaroscordum are a revelation. I planted the bulbs around 2 years ago, but it's only this year they've bloomed properly. The bee
Read more

The Resilient Garden

Image
  Part of Tom Massey's Resilient Garden at RHS Hampton Court I've been pondering VP Gardens a lot lately. Last year's drought conditions set me off initially, then our harsher than usual winter combined with this summer's flip and flop weather means the thinking continues. It's a huge topic which I freely admit I'm struggling to get my head around. Tom Massey's Resilient Garden  at Hampton Court recently  tackled this topic brilliantly and was a timely interlude which gave me much food for thought. There he encapsulated the detailed research he'd found which informed both his show garden and book of the same name. I think it's one of the most important show gardens I've ever seen. It's clear the way I garden needs to change so that I have my own resilient garden. I haven't worked out the exact details yet, but Tom's book plus a couple of others (see below), alongside the rainwater management handout from the show garden's  sponso
Read more

Testing Times: Tomatoes

Image
  I've run a couple of tomato trials this year. The first is a revisit of the biochar trial with Oxford University I attempted some years ago (with a different organisation this time), and the second is a trial of a water gadget called Plantsurge which I was given to try at Malvern Spring Show earlier this year. Most of you have probably heard of biochar already and the claim that this inert, carbon-rich material can help soil fertility and plant health. The RHS information in the above link says results can be mixed, with reduced effects found in alkaline soils. This may help to explain the lack of difference I found in my previous trial as VP Gardens is on a lime-rich soil. Plantsurge is a different beast altogether. It's a strong magnet which is attached to a hosepipe as shown in the photo above. It's claimed that it softens water, with the result more like watering with rainwater. The higher nitrogen found in rainwater is thought to be beneficial to plants. Gardener
Read more

Chelsea Fringe 2014: Shows of Hands - Episode I

Image
The gloves NAH used to build the raised bed . The effects are L to R, top to bottom:  Original photo, Warhol, HDR, Green tint, B&W, Posterize, Boost, Cross process and Sepia Welcome to Shows of Hands - my Chelsea Fringe project for 2014! As you can see I've been having a bit of a play around in Pic Monkey for my first contribution. You're welcome to join in between now and 8th June 2014. The idea behind this year's project is to highlight the tool most precious to a gardener: their hands. How do I take part? It's simple. All you need to do is take a photo of hand(s) in a gardening context and then share it via your blog or other social media (such as Twitter or Facebook), then make sure I know you've done so. I've set up Mr Linky below for your blog contributions. The Chelsea Fringe photo on the right sidebar links to this post, so you can easily find it again when you're ready to add your contribution. If you share your photo on Twitter,
Read more

Make Use of Mildew

Image
On my garden patrol this morning I spotted some powdery mildew on a couple of my new Verbena bonariensis plants. I suppose it was almost inevitable as I prefer to grow my plants hard - this means no water for them unless they look absolutely desperate. This approach means plants root themselves more deeply and have a better chance of survival during spells of dry weather like we've had lately. However, it also means I run the risk of problems like today's, especially with any garden newbies planted late in the season. We've had a good drop of rain overnight, so this should help my plants survive. I'll mulch them later today to help lock in the moisture as it's water stress which encourages the mildew to take hold. I've also removed the infected leaves and sprayed the rest with a milky drink.* I'm also pleased to find there's a use for my infected leaves. Oliver Ellingham at Reading University has started a PhD - sponsored by the RHS - researchi
Read more