The Wansdyke & District Forums

A happy new year to the forum. We wassailed the orchard at Twelfth Night as we do every year, and it set me wondering who else still keeps the old customs round here, and which have died out. For those who do not know it: wassailing is waking the apple trees, singing to them, pouring last year's cider on the roots, hanging toast in the branches for the robins, and making a great noise with pots and pans to drive off the bad spirits and wake the good. It is older than anyone can say, and it works, in the sense that an orchard that is loved and sung to is an orchard that is tended, and a tended orchard fruits. Does anyone still mum, or beat the bounds, or keep the Whitsun things?

How lovely, Morwenna. The society did a little display on calendar customs a few years back. Beating the bounds still happens in one or two parishes, though now it is more a nice walk with the vicar than a serious matter of remembering where the parish ends. The mumming was revived by the morris side and they do it round the pubs at Christmas, the play with St George and the Turkish Knight and the doctor who brings the dead man back to life. The children love it. It is half pantomime now but the bones of it are very old.

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we still wassail at ours though im not sure my father would call what the young ones do wassailing, more an excuse for cider. but the trees dont seem to mind and we get apples, so somethings working. my grandfather fired a shotgun up into the branches every twelfth night of his life. the neighbours must have loved him.

The cider and the noise are the wassail, Bill, that is not a corruption, that is the thing itself. Joy and a loud noise and a gift to the tree. Your grandfather knew exactly what he was doing. We have made these things solemn in our heads, but they were always a party with a purpose. Long may your orchard fruit.