BBC Radio 3 Words and Music

A Seasonal Journey 1 hour, 14 minutes 3 days left to listen
Wassail! wassail! all over the town, Our toast it is white, and our ale it is brown: the words of the Gloucester wassailer's song are just one of the Advent and Christmas traditions you'll hear in this selection of Words and Music as part of Radio 3's day marking customs from around the country and we'll add in some fictional ones too.

Readings:
John Clare: St Martin’s Eve
Karen Maitland: Stir-Up Sunday
William Bottrell: A Madron Feast
Charles Dickens: A Christmas Tree
Judith Kerr: Mog’s Christmas
Robert Herrick: Wassail the Trees
Anon: Wassailing Songs from around the UK
J. Ceredig Davies: Folk-lore of West and Mid-Wales- The Mari-Lwyd
Laurie Lee: A Village Christmas
Christina Rosetti: Advent
Floella Benjamin: Coming to England
Brian Bilston: The Good Old Days
Winifred Holtby: South Riding
William Marshall: The bishop who banned York’s Yuletide
Katrina Porteus: The Mizzletow
George Mackay Brown: Miss Tait and Tommy and the Carol Singers
MR James: Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad
Theresa Lola: Look at the Revival

A Christmas Menagerie 1 hour, 14 minutes 24 days left to listen
From “a partridge in a pear tree” to Dylan Thomas’s cats, UA Fanthorpe’s donkey to Scrooge’s turkey, Bach’s Sheep May Safely Graze to Sheep sung about in the film White Christmas.