A Winter Celebration
Jeremy Flint takes part in a winter wassail
JUST as Christmas splutters out on the twelfth night, revellers can look forward to getting together to celebrate wassailing – an ancient English tradition that involves drinking to the health of the apple trees and blessing the orchards. Having suffered a decline, it is increasing in popularity again as more events and celebrations take place around the country – even in London, which is not traditionally known for its apple trees.
With Pagan origins, this custom is intended to protect the orchards from evil spirits, encourage the apple crops and stimulate a fruitful harvest for the coming year. Modern celebrations also feature singing, protecting the trees by pouring cider on their roots or placing bread soaked in cider on to their branches. Even, on occasion, it involves tree whacking.
The Wassail at Brightwell-cumSotwell is one of the best in the country and, although its revival is relatively young, it has grown quickly and is second only to Evesham. The 2020 wassail that took place at the magnificent barn of Smalls House at Mackney on Twelfth Night captured the imagination of the community, with 750 people turning up, mostly villagers and their friends and relatives.
Eric Door, who has lived in Brightwell-cum-Sotwell since 1973, has been to all of the village wassails. He explains its appeal.
“It’s good, noisy, community fun with a framework following Christmas in a rather muddled, silly, friendly way for everyone.”
With a definitive ritual to the festivities, wassailers are greeted at the barn by the Wassail Master and are given Lamb’s Wool cider punch (made to an ancient village recipe) whilst listening to wonderful folk music by the village band the Shady Wilcox Experience. The Brightwell Players perform their annual Mummers’ play St George and the Wassail Dragon which is one of the highlights. Different Morris troupes provide entertainment – Armaleggan Morris, Datchet Border Morris and Borderline Morris all attended in 2020.
In-keeping with tradition, the party are led to the orchards by the Grand Wassail Master, Robert Field, and his apprentice Marcus Harris. The celebrations generally involve a wassail King and Queen being chosen, before the assembled group of revellers continue the celebrations with a noisy procession around the orchards. The party-goers then move around the village from one orchard to the next, large and small, old and new. People drink cider and sing to the apple trees before dipping pieces of toast in cider and hanging them on the branches of a favourite tree.
“The aim is to rouse the trees and ward off evil spirits,” Jason Debney, the organiser, says.
This, hopefully, yields a good crop for the following year’s cider. To wake the trees and drive away
demons, villagers bang pots and pans, making as much of a din as possible. The villagers also beat a chosen tree with hazel sticks and play the bagpipes. Shots are fired through the branches before wassailers sing a song and shout the traditional wassail chant: “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.
Wassail! Wassail!”
Cider is poured on the roots to keep the tree strong through the rest of the winter. Traditionally, a toast to good health to one and all is given with Lamb’s Wool or mulled cider and is a great way to warm the spirits. After the orchard procession, a group dance and a firework display follows. The event culminates in a spectacular fire dance outside the local Red Lion pub which was performed for the first time by Datchet Morris in 2020. Firesticks were lit and carried by the Morris group whilst performing their mesmerising moves in near darkness. The wassailers were then invited to the pub for more singing and dancing.
Jason Debney, a landscape historian by profession, who brings history and traditions alive and makes them relevant to the present, is a natural at organising the event. He first started going to a local orchard and making lots of noise with some friends in
2009, before evolving the Brightwellcum-Sotwell Wassail into its current form. The event supports the Village Orchard Group, an organisation dedicated to the preservation of the surviving orchards. With a healthy number of orchards still thriving in the village, over 80 varieties of apple are produced. “We try and visit as many village orchards as we can on a three-year rotation cycle,” Jason says.
Born and bred in the village, Jason moved away for university and lived in other parts of the UK before returning 10 years ago, and he now lives in the village with his wife and three children. As well as strengthening connections and community spirit, Jason says, “the Wassail reinforces our village identity as a rural parish and helps to protect and conserve our orchards and their wildlife.”
Eric adds, “The Wassail has put its stamp on a unique event, reflecting back to times when the area was a
prime apple-growing region. Until the 1960s much of the village was still covered in fruit trees. It was said at the time of apple blossom, looking down from the air, pilots thought there had been a heavy snowfall across numerous apple orchards.”
There is no other wassail quite like it in the country.
“It is different, quirky and quite unique,” Jason says. “The whole village turns out for it on a cold winter’s day, and the wassail celebrates village traditions and brings them alive to a new generation. The occasion marks the end of Christmas, and no-one can say that Brightwellcum-Sotwell
does not mark the changing seasons and its special days.”
It’s not just in Brightwell-cumSotwell, though. Wassailing is celebrated across the UK with events varying from region to region. It’s mostly practised in apple-growing and cider-producing regions of England such as Devon, Somerset, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire,
Sussex and Kent. Alternative ancient wassailing traditions take place in London each year, where the Bankside Mummers and the Holly Man will “bring in the green” and “waes hael” the people and the River Thames.