To Thread - Forum Home

The Mudcat Café TM
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=166986
12 messages

Anyone wassailing this Christmas?

01 Dec 19 - 03:45 PM (#4021850)
Subject: Anyone wassailing this Christmas?
From: Tradsinger

I'm sure that many of you, including me, will be attending wassails in January, singing around a tree with all the accompanying ceremony, but is anyone (apart from the Bodmin Wassailers) actually going around the houses at Christmas and the New Year with a wassail bowl, singing the song and wishing the occupants a Happy New Year etc. I mention this as the old Gloucestershire custom was always house-to-house, not the orchard wassail, and was done around Christmas or the New Year, but these days the only sort of wassail I hear of locally is the orchard wassail.

Tradsinger


02 Dec 19 - 08:27 PM (#4022001)
Subject: RE: Anyone wassailing this Christmas?
From: keberoxu

I used to live where
Las Posadas was observed every Advent.


02 Dec 19 - 09:18 PM (#4022012)
Subject: RE: Anyone wassailing this Christmas?
From: Tattie Bogle

Have to confess now: I've already done Sid Kipper's "Death or Glory Wassail" at a session yesterday! Not really the answer you wanted, Tradsinger?


03 Dec 19 - 10:21 AM (#4022049)
Subject: RE: Anyone wassailing this Christmas?
From: GUEST

Not really, Tattie, but a fun song.


05 Dec 19 - 12:09 PM (#4022313)
Subject: RE: Anyone wassailing this Christmas?
From: Rain Dog

Not wassailing but I did see 2 Hooden Horses in the pub on Monday night.

Maybe I should start a thread entitled "2 horses walk into a pub.."


05 Dec 19 - 03:45 PM (#4022349)
Subject: RE: Anyone wassailing this Christmas?
From: Mr Red

Stroud Wassail, 11 Jan

And they have a horse

Do we include Mari Lwyd? They have horses too.


03 Jan 20 - 05:09 PM (#4026211)
Subject: RE: Anyone wassailing this Christmas?
From: GUEST

The Hastings Howl takes place every year between Christmas and New Year in Sussex. The group of Howlers (there were 26 this year) go door to door and sing outside and inside houses where we are welcomed in and offered warm spiced cider, ale or wine plus a few spirits! We sing to to the apple tree in the gardens, make some loud noises to scare bad spirits from the tree we toast the health of the tree, pour a little cider on the roots. we pass round a wassail bowl with the Wassail! Drink Hail! salutation and shout 3 cheers to the hosts before moving on.
Tomorrow we (Rattlebag) are wassailing the Apple Tree in the pub garden/ 'orchard' at The Stag Inn, Hastings Old Town in the evening. We are also giving a little talk about the History of the Wassail tomorrow 4-5pm, in The Stag. 4th Jan 2019

https://www.facebook.com/events/712789789247277/

https://www.facebook.com/events/709705779526307/


04 Jan 20 - 04:45 AM (#4026269)
Subject: RE: Anyone wassailing this Christmas?
From: Sian H

And another next Saturday 11th Jan 2018 at the Denbigh in Bexhill, Sussex.


04 Jan 20 - 05:10 PM (#4026339)
Subject: RE: Anyone wassailing this Christmas?
From: Tradsinger

Interesting to hear about the Howlers going out between Christmas and the New Year and combining the house-to-house wassail and the orchard wassail. I thought that traditionally, Howling was an orchard wassail, so is this an extension to the original tradition?

Our folk choir went wassailing around our small Gloucestershire town with a wassail bowl before Christmas before ending up at the pub.   The bowl was decorated by fairy lights, so we claim to have the only battery-operated wassail bowl in existence.

We may develop the tour more this year.

I know there are hundreds of orchard wassails help in January but I wondered if anyone else was doing the house-to-house thing around Christmas.

Tradsinger


05 Jan 20 - 03:00 PM (#4026388)
Subject: RE: Anyone wassailing this Christmas?
From: John J

I'm not long since home from a small but perfectly formed Wassail in Knutsford,Cheshire.
I'm hoping to be at a Wassail in Penkhull, Staffordshaire on 18th January.


08 Jan 20 - 12:31 PM (#4027050)
Subject: RE: Anyone wassailing this Christmas?
From: keberoxu

refresh


10 Jan 20 - 04:14 PM (#4027554)
Subject: RE: Anyone wassailing this Christmas?
From: FreddyHeadey

Here is the 'Gloucestershire Christmas' link to local Wassailing with links to their Wassailing & songs.
http://www.gloschristmas.com/wassail/gloucestershire-wassail-3/


And Glostrad have just done a 30 minute podcast about local Wassailing.
Steve Rowley talking to Gwilym and Carol Davies and lots of examples of singing.
http://glostrad.com/podcasts/glostrad-folk-radio-podcast-no-2-the-gloucestershire-wassail/?fbclid=IwAR2iB9llTeWLIZcJf91rYAT7W7YkXUMRi4xxScF2w0DFTnGaFxBk8SsMlXk