How to Revive Wassailing | History Today
When I give talks about the medieval festival year, one of the questions people most often ask me is ‘are there any medieval traditions you think we should revive?’ I’m never quite sure how to answer. Reviving old traditions can be a lot of fun, but it’s also a tricky issue; there’s a danger of artificiality, twee archaism which can make once-vibrant customs seem false and meaningless.
Last January I had a memorable experience which seemed a model for how old traditions can successfully be brought to life again. It was just after Twelfth Night, around the return to work after the Christmas holidays – a moment in the year which for most people in Britain now passes unnoticed, but which was for centuries an important occasion for festivity and communal celebration. I went to a nearby village to take part in a revived Twelfth Night custom: wassailing fruit trees to ensure a good crop of fruit in the coming year.
Traditionally, wassailing involves singing to the trees, beating them with sticks, toasting them with cider or putting bits of ale-soaked bread in their branches. The original rationale behind this custom isn’t clear; the idea might have been to waken the trees after the dead season of midwinter, though some people claim it is about driving away evil spirits or appeasing the spirits of the trees themselves.
Wassailing is often popularly said to be a medieval custom because the word has medieval roots: it goes back to the phrase ‘wæs hail’, ‘be well’, a toast used to wish someone health when presenting them with a drink. Once a formal greeting, in medieval England ‘wassail’ became a general word for drinking and feasting, and a name for the alcoholic drink itself. In medieval sources, wassailing is not connected to crops. The first recorded wassailing of fruit trees at Twelfth Night dates from the late 16th century. There are no exact medieval precedents.
From the early modern period onwards, however, it was a well-attested custom across southern England. It was always a tradition with great regional diversity, reflecting the crops and culture of different areas: in the West Country cider played an important role, while in the Weald there would be costumes, horn-blowing and trees splashed with ale. Though it had almost died out by the early 20th century, wassailing is now a tradition in rude health. Over the past hundred years it has been successfully revived all over Britain, and can be found in many places outside its former apple-growing heartlands.
What I liked about the wassailing I attended last winter was that there was no pretence at authenticity – no sense in which anyone was trying artificially to re-enact an old-fashioned tradition. This was a processional event, as hundreds of people wound their way through gardens across the village over the course of several hours (it is a small village, but no one was in any hurry). There was enthusiastic shouting and beating of the apple trees, but also an assortment of other activities which had nothing to do with the old traditions of wassailing: a stick-throwing competition; a contest for children to be crowned king and queen of the wassail; a very modern mummers’ play about contemporary politics (Putin made an appearance); and, as the short day turned to night, fireworks and dancing with lighted torches.
Essentially this was not a revival but a new custom, inspired by tradition but recently created for this community – a rural village growing fast because of housing development, and so perhaps especially in need of a tradition that can include newcomers and long-term residents alike. The mood was welcoming, also drawing in people like me who had come from outside the village just out of curiosity. Anyone who was willing to trudge around on a murky day, amid occasional bursts of rain, was welcome to join the fun – and there were crowds of people, of all ages, happy to do so.
It was a joyous way to start the year amid the gloom of early January. To me, it seemed a perfect example of how tradition can be an inspiration rather than a burden, and how such customs can respond to the needs of the communities which perform them. Tradition is a living thing. If we want to revive old ways of finding more colour, fellowship and fun at this dreary time of year, we can take inspiration from the past – but we can also make something new out of it in any way we want.
Eleanor Parker is Lecturer in Medieval English Literature at Brasenose College, Oxford and the author of Conquered: The Last Children of Anglo-Saxon England (Bloomsbury, 2022).
