The tradition of wassailing falls into two distinct categories: The House-Visiting wassail and the Orchard-Visiting wassail. House-Visiting wassail; caroling by any other name, is the practice of people going door-to-door singing Christmas carols. The Orchard-Visiting wassail refers to the ancient custom of visiting orchards, reciting incantations and singing to the trees in apple orchards in cider-producing regions of England to promote a good harvest for the coming year.

"Here we come a-wassailing" performed by the U.S. Army Band

Origins of wassailing/Yulesinging[link]

Some scholars prefer a pre-Christian explanation of the old traditional ceremony of wassailing. How far the tradition dates back is unknown but it has undeniable connections with Anglo-Saxon pagan ritual. Of recent times the word Wassail (from the Anglo-Saxon toast Wæs þu hæl, "be thou hale" — i.e., "be in good health") has come to be synonymous with Christmas. The word wassail is old English (OE) and so may predate the Norman conquest in 1066. According to the Oxford English Dictionary "waes hael" is the Middle English spelling parallel to OE "wes hal".^[1] The American Heritage Dictionary, fourth edition, gives Old Norse "ves heill" as the source of Middle English "waeshaeil".^[2] The correct response to the toast is Drinc hæl.^[3]

Christmas was not celebrated anywhere before the third century, and only gradually moved northwards through Europe. It was probably the Normans who brought the celebration to England. Traditionally, the wassail is celebrated on Twelfth Night (mostly regarded as January 6, but more properly the evening of January 5). However most people insist on wassailing on 'Old Twelvey Night' (January 17) as that would have been the correct date before the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar in 1752.

The practice has its roots in the middle ages as a reciprocal exchange between the feudal lords and their peasants as a form of recipient initiated charitable giving, to be distinguished from begging. This point is made in the song "Here We Come A-Wassailing", when the wassailers inform the lord of the house that

"we are not daily beggars that beg from door to door but we are friendly neighbours whom you have seen before."

The lord of the manor would give food and drink to the peasants in exchange for their blessing and goodwill, i.e...

"Love and joy come to you,

And to you your wassail too;

And God bless you and send you

a Happy New Year"

... which would be given in the form of the song being sung. Wassailing is the background practice against which an English carol such as "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" dating back to sixteenth century England, can be made sense of.^[4] The carol lies in the English tradition where wealthy people of the community gave Christmas treats to the carolers on Christmas Eve such as 'figgy puddings'.^[5]

Although wassailing is often described in innocuous and sometimes nostalgic terms, the practice in England has not always been considered so innocent. Wassailing was associated with rowdy bands of young men who would enter the homes of wealthy neighbours and demand free food and drink in a trick-or-treat fashion. If the householder refused, he was usually cursed, and occasionally his house was vandalized. The example of the exchange is seen in their demand for "figgy pudding" and "good cheer", i.e., the wassail beverage, without which the wassailers in the song will not leave; "We won't go until we get some, so bring some out here."^[5]

The Orchard-Visiting Wassail[link]

In the cider-producing West of England (primarily the counties of Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Gloucestershire and Herefordshire) wassailing also refers to drinking (and singing) the health of trees in the hopes that they might better thrive.

An old rhyme goes: “Wassaile the trees, that they may beare / You many a Plum and many a Peare: / For more or lesse fruits they will bring, / As you do give them Wassailing.”

The purpose of wassailing is to awake the cider apple trees and to scare away evil spirits to ensure a good harvest of fruit in the Autumn.{"England In Particular", Common Ground 2007} The ceremonies of each wassail vary from village to village but they generally all have the same core elements. A wassail King and Queen lead the song and/or a processional tune to be played/sung from one orchard to the next, the wassail Queen will then be lifted up into the boughs of the tree where she will place toast soaked in Wassail from the Clayen Cup as a gift to the tree spirits (and to show the fruits created the previous year). Then an incantation is usually recited such as

“Here's to thee, old apple tree, That blooms well, bears well. Hats full, caps full, Three bushel bags full, An' all under one tree. Hurrah! Hurrah!”

Then the assembled crowd will sing and shout and bang drums and pots & pans and generally make a terrible racket until the gunsmen give a great final volley through the branches to make sure the work is done and then off to the next orchard. Perhaps unbeknown to the general public, this ancient English tradition is still very much thriving today. The West Country is the most famous and largest cider producing region of the country and some of the most important wassails are held annually in Carhampton (Somerset) and Whimple (Devon), both on 17 January (old Twelfth Night).

Private readings about people in Somerset in the 1800s revealed that inhabitants of Somerset practised the old Wassailing Ceremony, singing the following lyrics after drinking the cider until they were "merry and gay:"

"Apple tree, apple tree, we all come to wassail thee, Bear this year and next year to bloom and to blow, Hat fulls, cap fulls, three cornered sack fills, Hip, Hip, Hip, hurrah, Holler biys, holler hurrah."^[6]

Wassail bowls[link]

Wassail bowls, generally in the shape of goblets, have been preserved. The Worshipful Company of Grocers made a very elaborate one in the seventeenth century, decorated with silver.^[7] It is so large that it must have passed around as a "loving cup" so that many members of the guild could drink from it.^{[citation needed]}

In the British Christmas carol "Wassail, Wassail, All Over the Town", the singers tell that their "bowl is made of the white maple tree, with a wassailing bowl we'll drink to thee". White maple is a completely tasteless wood, commonly used even today to make some kitchen utensils, and likely was what many simple peasant wassail bowls were made from.

There are surviving examples of "puzzle wassail bowls", with many spouts. As you attempt to drink from one of the spouts, you are drenched from another spout. The drink was either punch, mulled wine or spicy ale.

See also[link]

• Wassail
• Apple Wassail
• Wish Tree
• Yule Goat

References[link]

• Oxford English Dictionary
• Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary "wassail."
• Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery Wassail Bowl
• "Reminiscences of Life in the parish of Street, Somersetshire dated 1909 at pages 25-26 written by an "old inhabitant" William Pursey of Street 1836-1919. This is the art of wassail.

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Pictures of Wassail Bowls
• Wassailing
• Wassailing: Caroling for Beer
• Wassail Songs

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Kate Rusby
Background information
Born	(1973-12-04) 4 December 1973 (age 38)[1]
Origin	Penistone, South Yorkshire, England
Genres	English folk music
Occupations	Singer-Songwriter
Instruments	Guitar, vocals
Years active	1995–present
Labels	Pure Records
Associated acts	Damien O'Kane, The Poozies
Website	www.katerusby.com

Kate Anna Rusby (born 4 December 1973^[2]) is an English folk singer and songwriter from Penistone, South Yorkshire. Sometimes known as The Barnsley Nightingale, she has headlined various British national folk festivals, and is regarded as one of the most famous English folk singers of contemporary times. In 2001 The Guardian described her as "a superstar of the British acoustic scene."^[3] In 2007 the BBC website described her as "The first lady of young folkies". She is one of the few folk singers to have been nominated for the Mercury Prize.^[4][5]

Career[link]

Rusby was born into a family of musicians in 1973 in Sheffield, England.^[2] After learning to play the guitar, the fiddle, and the piano, as well as to sing, she played in many local folk festivals as a child and adolescent, before joining (and becoming the lead vocalist of) the all-female Celtic folk band The Poozies. Her break-through album came in 1995. A collaboration with her friend and fellow Barnsley folk singer Kathryn Roberts was simply titled Kate Rusby & Kathryn Roberts. In 1997, with the help of her family, she recorded and released her first solo album, Hourglass. Since then she has gone on to receive acclaim in her home country and abroad, and her family continues to help her with all aspects of her professional career.

Rusby was also a member of the folk group Equation, later to be replaced by Cara Dillon. The early line-up also featured Rusby's erstwhile performing partner Kathryn Roberts and Mercury-nominated artist Seth Lakeman. Their demo CD, In Session, had a small commercial release.

The previously unreleased song "Wandering Soul" was Rusby's contribution to the soundtrack for Billy Connolly's World Tour of New Zealand, an eight-part BBC television documentary series originally broadcast in November 2004.

Rusby at the Larmer Tree Festival 2008

A collaboration with Ronan Keating saw Rusby riding high in the UK Singles Chart; their duet "All Over Again" peaked at #6 in June 2006. She also made a vocal contribution to the successful debut solo album of Roddy Woomble, the lead singer of Idlewild. In the same year her cover of The Kinks' "The Village Green Preservation Society" was used as the theme tune to the BBC One television sitcom Jam & Jerusalem. Rusby has written several new songs for the latest series of Jam & Jerusalem, and is credited as responsible for the show's music.

Launched at the 2007 Cambridge Folk Festival, the album Awkward Annie was released on 3 September 2007. "The Village Green Preservation Society" is included as a bonus track.

2008 saw the release of Sweet Bells, an album of traditional Christmas songs interpreted by Rusby.

In 2010, Rusby released the album Make the Light, a collection of self-penned songs, and in 2011 issued a second collection of Christmas songs titled While Mortals Sleep.

Personal life[link]

In August 2001, Rusby married Scottish fiddler and fellow band member John McCusker (formerly of the Battlefield Band), who produced most of her recordings up to The Girl Who Couldn't Fly. They divorced.^[1]

Rusby lives with her husband Damien O'Kane and her dog Doris, herself a mainstay feature of Rusby's banter during gigs and appearing on her merchandise.^[6] Their first child, a daughter, was born on 15 September 2009.^[7] Kate and Damien were married on 12 June 2010. The pair's second child, named Phoebe Summer Rusby-O'Kane, was born at 12.13 pm on 30 April 2012 weighing 7lb 15oz.

Discography[link]

Solo albums[link]

• Hourglass (1997)
• Sleepless (1999)
• Little Lights (2001)
• 10 (2002)
• Heartlands (2003)
• Underneath the Stars (2003)
• The Girl Who Couldn't Fly (2005)^[8]
• Awkward Annie (2007) #2 UK Indie
• Make the Light (2010)

Christmas Albums

• Sweet Bells (2008)
• While Mortals Sleep (2011)

Awards[link]

Mercury Music Prize[link]

• 1999: Sleepless – nominated^[5]

BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards[link]

• 2000: Folk Singer of the Year – winner^[9]
• 2000: Best Album: Sleepless – winner^[9]
• 2002: Best Original Song: "Who Will Sing Me Lullabies"^[1] – winner^[9]
• 2006: Best Original Song: "No Names" (with Roddy Woomble from Idlewild) – nominated
• 2006: Best Album: The Girl Who Couldn't Fly – nominated
• 2006: Best Live Act – winner^[10]

Quotation[link]

This section is a candidate to be copied to Wikiquote using the Transwiki process.

All the kids at school would be wearing their headphones listening to rock or a heavy metal band and I'd be listening to some fiddle music.^[11]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Artists: Kate Rusby PureRecords.net