Wassailing
House Wassailing The arrival of the Wassailing party. The wassailers will meet together at a predetermined time and place and before setting out will rehearse the letting in or wassail song. When everyone is gathered, the party will each have a piece of apple cake, within the apple cake is a bean, whoever gets the piece of cake with the bean in it, becomes the wassail King or Queen for the evening. The wassail King or Queen is a cross between a Master of Ceremonies and a Lord of Misrule. It is important that the chosen person fully enters into the spirit of this role. It is considered a great honour to have been so chosen. When the assembled company are gathered, we will move off to the first house to be wassailed. The singing of the "Letting in" or Wassail song. Wassailing the House. This bit is pretty easy and should be popular with the kids. The wassailers enter the house through the back door and start making as much noise as they can, shouting, bashing pots and pans, playing instruments etc., every room in the house is to be entered and then everyone exits through the front door. When this has happened the house is cleansed of any nasty thoughts or spirits that have built up during the preceding year. So the party can re-enter a freshly "Wassailed" house. The wassail bowl. Social time. This is where we all have a laugh and a chat and everyone gets to criticise my singing! During this period we all have a bit of food, bread, cheese, pickles, sandwiches etc., and maybe sing a song or two. Soft drinks should also be available for those not imbibing. The wassail bowl is to be emptied, it is considered bad luck for the house for any of the brew to be left. As we will be wassailing a few houses, there is no need to overfill the bowl! The Ashen Faggot. While the wassailers are enjoying themselves, the host will be preparing the base of embers for the ashen faggot. The base should be hot and evenly spread across the whole of the bottom of the firebasket, this is to ensure that the faggot will catch fire evenly. The wassailers gather round in a big half circle. The faggot is given by the youngest boy from the host family (or youngest boy present) to the oldest person in the room. The faggot is then passed in order of descending age around the wassailers. Each person holds the faggot for a few moments before passing it on to the next person. The faggot is bound by binders, each person chooses one of these binders and makes a secret wish for the forthcoming year. When everyone has held the faggot, the King or Queen places it on to the bed of embers. The wassail party then wait until the first binder snaps open. If you chose this binder, then your wish will come true, provided you don't reveal it to anyone. Collecting the ash brands from the fire. When the bundle has become loose, each member of the wassailing party who will be having an ashen faggot next year in their own home, takes out of the fire an ash brand. This brand is stripped of its bark on one end and the name of the house and the year are written or carved into it. This brand then goes into the centre of your ashen faggot for the next year. This brand has come from a newly wassailed house where the house has been cleansed and is full of joy, the house and assembled company has been toasted. The brand has also been cleansed by the fire. Another part of the custom is for each member of the host family to take a brand and write their name and the year on it and add it to a bundle that each person has. This personal bundle is not burnt, but grows with each year, it should contain a stick for each Christmas of his life. Goodbye. Learning the "Wassail" or "Letting in" song. This is very important, as it is one of the main elements of the tradition. I know it may be a bore, but it is a pretty melody and quite simple to pick up. I will provide the music and lyrics as collected by Cecil Sharp for everyone to have a bash at. It is important that you are not embarrassed to give it a good full hearted rendition. The English seem to be very reserved about this sort of thing, whereas in places such as Ireland everyone sings traditional songs, whether you are a teenager or a senior citizen. The wassail song was as natural to be sung as whistling a modern pop tune. It is part of our heritage and folk tradition, which after all is what we are trying to revive. No one is going to laugh at you, after all we are all in the same boat and I am certainly no singer! If you can play an instrument, pleases bring it along, that would be great. Obviously, a portable instrument would be the ideal so that it can be used during the house wassail. Preparing the Ashen faggot. This is done in advance of the wassail, and I suggest that a chosen representative from each house, that wishes to burn a faggot, all head off down to the Somerset levels and we have a bash at making them. It would be nice if we did this one afternoon during a mutually convenient weekend. I will try and organise an experienced person to show us all what to do and to demonstrate how the bundles are made and more importantly how the binders are attached and tied. These binders can be made of withies or brambles. I think that this is the sort of thing that you only need see once to master, but I guess I'll take the video camera as well! The brew for the Wassail bowl. As yet I have not gathered recipes for the traditional brews used to fill the wassail bowl. From what I can glean, each house made their own brew and this recipe was jealously guarded by the household. I have thought about the possibility of involving local brewing societies to give advice and maybe a hand to people or alternatively you can have a bash yourself! If you are going to attempt to do a brew from scratch you will probably have to start a few months in advance of the new year. Due to the fact that some people will be driving, a request has been made about the possibility of having a non alcoholic alternative available. This sounds like a really good idea to me as it not only gets over the practical business of drinking and driving, but also lets younger children partake in the ceremony. When I have access to recipes, I will make them available to everyone to either use or modify. Can I please point out that it is not necessary to try and get everyone drunk, that's missing the point of the wassail. ON THE NIGHT PREPARATION. The bed for the Ashen Faggot. This is more or less covered in the main body of the text. Basically, if you intend to burn a faggot, then you will need to not only have one prepared before hand, but you will need to have an appropriate place in which to burn it. The faggot will have to be placed on a hot, even bed of embers, to allow the even and equal burning through of the retaining binders of the faggot. When the binders snap open the ash sticks will spill out over the fire, so care has to be taken that the fire place is appropriate for the size of the bundle. We don't want to have the fire brigade join us for the rest of the tradition! House Access. The wassailing party will need to enter every room in the house to properly wassail it. Everyone will be making lots of noise, so you will need to warn your neighbours, although hopefully, they will be present. If you have nervous pets, this will also have to be taken into account. Drinking glasses. A little point but people will need something to drink from when they come to your house. Although some folks will make their own arrangements, i.e. pewter tankards. Basic Food. The Brew. I have already talked about the brew in a bit of detail, so what ever you decide to do, brew from scratch, use a preparatory wassail sachet or make up your own recipe (after enjoyable experimentation, no doubt!) all you have to do is make sure it is ready on the night for the arrival of the wassailers. You will have to provide a few thing to bang and crash for the procession through the house. I suggest pots and pans and spoons or ladles, although you can use anything that makes a din! Some wassailers will probably bring their own noise generating equipment! Greenery for the house. Wassailing and Christmas in general was celebrated using greenery for decoration. This ties in with rebirth and the wishing of the apple harvest well etc. The room where the wassailers will assemble needs to have greenery as decoration. The most important part is for the entrance and exit doors to the building to have lots of greenery above them, holly etc. Greenery above the door is good luck. I hope that these notes do not put you off. The idea is to have fun, revive a tradition, meet new friends and build bonds with your neighbours and families. I hope you agree that these are not bad aims. If you need any help or guidance with any aspect of the wassail, please call me at any time for a chat.
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Sequence of Events.
When the party have arrived at the first house to be wassailed, everyone will gather at the back door of the house to sing the letting in or wassail song. It is very important that everyone knows this song off by heart. The version that I have chosen is the one collected by Cecil Sharp at the turn of the century from Langport in Somerset, there is a very similar version attributed to the village of Curry Rivel from around the same time. There are lots of wassail songs, but this one seems to be about the best documented and probably the most popularly sung song of this type. Anyone that can play any type of instrument will be very welcome to join in with the wassail song. When the party have sung the third verse, the host can open the door. There are five written verses to the wassail song but these were normally supplemented by two other verses. The first of these supplemental verses was sung by a wassailer about the host or his family and then there was a verse sang by someone in the house about the wassailers. Obviously these verses can be about whatever you like, funny, contemporary, etc. The back door should have greenery above it.
The assembled company let out a cheer as the full wassail bowl is brought into the room. Each family used to jealously guard the recipe for their brew that was contained in the bowl and there was much prestige to be gained from the quality and flavour of a hosts brew. The brew consisted of either a beer or cider based mulled concoction. "Furmenty", "Negus" and "Lambs Wool" were the names of some of the brews used. I am trying to find appropriate recipes as a guide-line, for example Lambs Wool consists of "hot ale, sugar, and nutmeg with toast and roasted crab apples" where as at Walton the brew consists of "hot cider, gin and ginger" - so as you can see, I think there is plenty of scope for experimentation here! The essence of the wassail bowl is the drinking of mutual health's from a communal bowl. There is a sequence involved in the order of drinking, the eldest male member of the host house, who receives his glass from the youngest male member present, then the eldest lady of the house, this alternates for the host family, then the wassail King or Queen then the assembled company.
Well that's about it. The party wish each other a "Jolly Wassail" and depart, being full of good cheer and hopefully having made new friends and caught up with old ones! 
You are not expected to provide a banquet for people who come to wassail you home. Just a few bits and bobs to keep people going and to help keep out the cold!