Posted on 01/08/2017 3:45:36 PM PST by Bigg Red
Apple Howling or 'wassailing' is an ancient custom in which the 'evil' spirits are driven out and the 'good' spirits are encouraged to produce a good apple crop for the following year's cider.
The Chanctonbury Ring Morris Men revived this tradition in the area over 45 years ago and it has become an essential part of Christmas for many people, especially families with young children, who seem to welcome the opportunity to make as much noise as possible! The ceremony was traditionally held on the eve of Twelfth Night, old Christmas Day, but we have settled on the first Saturday in January as a regular date for our event.
The venue is Old Mill Farm, Bolney, RH17 5SE [Map] and we are grateful to Glyn Stevens, the owner, for making us welcome, as always.
The proceedings begin in the farmyard at 6pm with a torchlight procession down the lane to the orchard, where the wassailers encircle one of the oldest trees. The Master of the Ceremony begins the proceedings by leading an invocation, encouraging the tree to produce a bumper crop in the coming season. A spiced and cider-soaked wassail cake is placed in a fork of the tree and cider is poured over the roots to promote good growth. After some more words of encouragement for the tree, the Master of the Ceremony calls for beaters to thrash the trunk of the tree with sticks. This is one of the parts of the event that particularly appeals to the younger members - the harder they hit, the greater the stimulation! This is followed by a wassail song and a number of dances by the Chanctonbury Ring Morris Men.
The high point of the ceremony now takes place with the ‘general hullabaloo’. This begins with a shotgun being fired into the air, at which point, everyone makes as much noise as possible. Bring your own ‘instruments’ - dustbin lids, old saucepans and football rattles - let your imagination be your guide! The hullabaloo ends with another gunshot - we used to use a whistle, but once the racket got going, no-one could hear it!
The evening concludes back "There are no catering or toilet facilities at the farmyard with spiced wassail cakes and English cider. As in previous years, we are hoping to be able to sample some more of that wonderful cider from Old Mill Farm, where the ceremony is held. A collection is taken to offset our costs, and so that everyone may associate themselves with the occasion and its undoubted benefits!
~snip~
(The section that I snipped is just a list of bits of information for someone who plans to attend, e.g., "There are no catering or toilet facilities...." --Bigg Red)
~snip~ (This paragraph appeared at the bottom of the page. --Bigg Red) A new book called “Wassailing” - Reawakening an Ancient Folk Custom has recently been published, which features our ceremony and its history, among many others. It is detailed yet a very enjoyable and informative read and we can thoroughly recommend it. Click on the image of it to the right and you will open a direct link to their website for more detail and ordering information. (I have posted the link below. This book is the 6th item down the page. --Bigg Red)
http://hedinghamfair.co.uk/hedingham_fair_books.htm
I have been wanting to visit England for a long time. Perhaps we should schedule our visit for Christmastime. :)
Apologies! I should have done a better job of proofreading.
This sentence:
The evening concludes back “There are no catering or toilet facilities at the farmyard with spiced wassail cakes and English cider.
Should read:
The evening concludes back at the farmyard with spiced wassail cakes and English cider.
Druids.
I guess it’s better than sacrificing a young virgin to make sure they get a good apple crop.
Pure paganism, and not something to be mixed with Christianity.
"The new vicar had never wanted a picture-postcard parish—or a huge and haunted vicarage. Nor had she wanted to walk into a dispute over a controversial play about a 17th-century clergyman accused of witchcraft, a story that certain long-established families would rather remained obscure. But this is Ledwardine, steeped in cider and secrets. A paradise of cobbled streets and timber-framed houses. And also—as Merrily Watkins and her teenage daughter, Jane, discover—a village where horrific murder is a tradition that spans centuries."
It's the only book in the series I've read so far. They are very thick books, but I thoroughly enjoyed it, and have the next two on my bookshelf to read.
Sounds like something from THE GOLDEN BOUGH by Frasier or THE EVIL EYE by Elworthy.
Can THE GREEN MAN or THE WICKER MAN be far behind?
I have an apple tree.
Let me tell you the secret to a good crop of apples.
Dogs. Specifically, water dogs.
We had a terrible crop this year.
I tried to figure out what went wrong.
Our dog, The Older Black Brother, passed away before this growing season.
He loved to play with the hose in the back by the apple tree when I turned the water on. He would drag the hose around and put it down and scratch up the wet, dead grass.
He could do that for hours.
Well, he wasn’t there this summer to water (and perhaps fertilize) the apple tree.
The back lawn wasn’t as healthy this summer without his thatching.
The secret to a good crop for fruit trees is to get a dog.
I sure miss that guy.
Bookmark
This isn’t really the primary meaning of “wassail,” although it may have been a natural outcome of Christmas drinking ceremonies.
The primary meaning it to wish someone good health in a toast at a winter holiday drinking celebration.
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/wassail?s=t
“The back lawn wasn’t as healthy this summer without his thatching.”
I wish our dog would keep it down to “thatching”. I suppose he does keep the scare into the moles with all of his digging though.
I’d rather have the dog than a nice yard. Condolences on the loss of your buddy.
If an apple howls at me I’m gonna howl right back at it.
Then I’m gonna run away real fast. An apple that howls is just odd enough to be taken as a potential threat.
After a year in which our Jonalicious apple tree, already well over the age it should be heavily producing, failed to produce much of a crop, Dad took an axe and led us all out back in the snow to the tree, where he proceeded to threaten it if it failed again while slapping it several times up and down the trunk with the broad side of the axe. We’d never seen him yell at a tree before, or anything else so weird, so it was quite memorable.
The tree produced a bumper crop that year.
While there isn’t much to the threats, of course, it is true that stimulating apple tree trunks by thumping the bark does do soething to the tree to induce heavy flowering...maybe like other plants that try to carry out one last hurrah to reproduce when they are dying, injuring an apple tree triggers a “last hurrah” response without the tree actually dying.
If you want to see the Chanctonbury Morris Men’s Mummer’s Play, St George and the Dragon, performed, they are in Washington every Boxing Day at a pub. Cannot remember which one. Washington is near the south coast. They really are partiers!
Sorry, I did not mean to imply that it is Christian. I am a Christian, but I think I could enjoy a pre-Chrisitian tradition like this even though I don’t believe in its “powers”.
True.
Sorry you lost your pup.
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