Make your own Wassail

In normal times around Twelfth Night the Broadwood Men would be Wassailing the apple trees in the orchard at Maplehurst with JB’s cider, some toast, a bonfire and all our friends; starting with dancing at the White Horse and ending back there with music and singing. However, these are not normal times and while we hope to be able to share some kind of Wassail with you for Twelfth Night we also thought you might want to have a little wassail of your own, so here are some ideas.

Now, the Broadwood wassail is an example of an orchard visiting wassail where we wassail an apple tree, although as it’s just an excuse for an outdoor party then to be honest pretty well anything will do, so when we say ‘apple tree’ just substitute whatever you’re wassailing.

What you’ll need:

An orchard, apple tree or substitute

Cider. JB’s for preference but others are available

Some cold toast

A bowl for soaking the toast in some of the cider

Something to make a noise with

Some stout sticks for driving out evil spirits

Some virgins (optional) or children

A fire and/or lanterns to brighten up your wassail location

The Wassail

This assumes you’re wassailing a single apple tree, but feel free to adapt.

Start by lighting your lanterns and / or fire (take all the sensible precautions associated with a fire, keep any stray morris dancers in tattered jackets well away from it)

Have a bit of a procession to your tree, make a thing of it.

Once you get to your chosen tree it’s important to let any evil spirits lurking in the tree know who’s in charge, so bash the trunk with sticks to drive out any spirits that may be lurking there.

Next, pour some cider over the roots (it might be worth checking the quality of the cider at this point) to enrich the soil and to help to ensure a good crop in the coming year.

At this point our Wassail M/C, Dick, would normally have an apple-related anecdote to share. Now, he’s not going to be at your Wassail, but here’s an example of the kind of thing for you to use (if you’re going to read this out it’s worth taking a sip of cider first, no-one wants to be thirsty while they’re reading). This is an account of the effects of weather taken from ‘The Cuckoo in June - Tales of a Sussex Orchard’ by David Atkins:

Hail

When hail strikes a fruit farm it is devastating. In 1958 we had an excellent

crop and had just started picking when, on 5 th September, the black clouds

piled high and the hail crashed down. It was so heavy that, instead of

bouncing on the grass, the hailstones buried themselves in the ground. The

hail killed cats, dented cars, crashed through greenhouses and made holes in

corrugated asbestos roofs.

The week before the storm a glasshouse grower had been on television and

remarked that unlike other farmers he was immune to weather changes.

Perhaps the gods heard him! Every pane of glass was smashed and all his crops ruined.

Now pour some cider into the bowl (again, it’s worth checking the quality of your cider if there’s any doubt) and soak or dip the toast in the cider and finally place the soaked toast in the branches of the tree to feed the robins who will carry off any remaining bad spirits. This task is traditionally performed by one or more virgins and/or children.

Now everybody recites the following verse:

First verse:

Here’s to thee old Apple Tree,

May’st thou bud. May’st thou blow,

Hats full, caps full, full quarter sacks full,

HOORAY!

After the first verse everyone makes a lot of noise to scare off evil spirits, but you might not have got rid of them all so there’s another:

Second verse:

Here stands a good old Apple Tree,

Stand fast root, Bear well top,

Every twig apples big, Every bough apples enou’,

Hats full, caps full, four and twenty caps full,

HOORAY!

After the second verse everyone makes even more noise with whatever they can - hooters, football rattles, etc - to finally drive off any remaining evil spirits

Finally all sing the Wassail song, especially the chorus! Here's a video as a reminder of how it goes