The Gower Wassail is a traditional cider wassailing song from the Gower peninsula in Wales.

Wassailing is very ancient, the word itself comes from the Anglo-Saxon ‘Wass Hael’, meaning ‘to your health’.

Wassail bowl

On twelfth night celebrations a bowl known as a wassailing bowl would be filled with a drink known as lambs wool, each person present would drink from the bowl and wish health to the others present. The wassail bowl itself would have been finely decorated with greenery.

Customs

There are many other traditions and customs concerning wassailing, which shows how popular and deeply entrenched in English society the custom of wassailing was and is. Travellers would be known to sell the contents of wassail cups.

Poor people and families would go from house to house with an empty wassail cup singing wassail carols asking for food and drink.

They would also carry sticks and branches known as wassail sticks, and these wassail sticks like the wassail bowl would have been finely decorated with greenery and ribbons.

Wassailing trees

Another wassail tradition is that of wassailing trees, especially that of apple trees. At dusk time the people wassailing the trees would sing songs and pour cider upon the roots of the trees, and pieces of toast would be hung from the branches of the trees. Noises were made with horns to scare away evil spirits.

It was also a tradition that the people who had been wassailing the trees were not allowed back in to their homes until they had answered a question put to them.

That wassailing is still so widely and strongly practiced today is evidence of the popularity of this custom throughout the centuries.

Wassail recipe

Everyone knows “Here we come a-wassailing.” But how many know how to make actual wassail?

Fortunately, there’s a nice recipe for Wassail Cup, recorded by Nicholas Culpeper in his Herball (1620):

• 2 or 3 cinnamon sticks
• 3 blades of mace
• 4 cloves
• 1 teaspoon of nutmeg
• 1 ginger root
• 4 apples
• 4 oz. of sugar
• 1/2 pint of brown ale
• 1/2 pint of cider

Core the apples and sprinkle with sugar and water. Bake at 375 degrees F or 190 degrees C for 30 minutes, or until tender.

Mix ale, cider and spices together. Heat but do not boil. Leave for 30 minutes. Strain and pour over roasted apples.

Serve in a punch bowl. Of course if you’re planning on saluting more than a few wassailers you’ll want to increase the recipe accordingly.

Brian Senior, April 2009