The expression “Wassail” in English / “Wassel” in Cornish is derived from the Old Germanic toast “Ves heill” with the meaning “be in good health. There is some discussion as to whether it has Norse (Viking) origins or Old English, perhaps a combination of both. [1]
We do not know when it was adopted into Cornish, but it could have arrived as early as the ninth century with the Danish Vikings. The Celtic people of Cornwall had a quite different relationship to the Danes than the communities further east in Britain. There is only one historic record of a Viking raid in Cornwall as opposed to 17 across the border in Devon and indeed the Cornish and Danes were allies fighting against the English in the battle of Hingston Down in 835 [2].
The Wassail was sufficiently familiar to Cornish speakers in the 1400s to make an appearance in the medieval mystery plays.[3] During the middle play of the Ordinalia cycle, Passyon Agan Arluth ( Our Lords Passion), Christ’s executioners become “torturers” and offer to quench his thirst:
Tortor ii
Seghes sur thotho yma,
Ef an geve drok wyras.
[extendit spongeam]
Ottense gynef parys,
Bystel eysel kymyskys,
Wassel, marsus seghes bras [4]
Second Torturer
He is surely thirsty,
He finds it an evil truth.
[He holds out a sponge.]
Here it is prepared by me,
A vulgar mixture of bile,
Wassail, if you are thirsty.
The mystery plays mocked people and events that would be known to the audience. This might be an allusion to the custom of pouring cider and any other available alcohol into a bowl that is then passed around to toast “wassail” – “Good Health”. The mixture was probably quite interesting as it was passed from person to person and added to during festivities which is why it was a potential instrument of torture in the miracle play.
We do not know if “Wassel” here is simply a reference to the toast of good health or whether it had connotations of the Wassail customs as we know them today. Certainly, at some time in the medieval world this simple toast of “Wassail” connected with the ritual blessing of the apple tree that is likely to be as old as the cultivation of the apple itself. It is not in the nature of folk traditions to have a single point of origin and it is likely that the custom of Wassailing coalesced and combined with local traditions in different ways in different places. Folklorists do like to impose a sense of order on folk tradition and group wassail customs as: Visit Wassails that travel from house to house; Apple Wassails centred on a ritual around a particular tree or orchard; and Banquet Wassails that form part of festivities hosted in a hall or someone’s home.[5] This is a useful way of understanding the variety of Wassail traditions but the line between them is a very fine one.
In 1624 we get a glimpse of the Wassail as an established custom in the will of one Nicholas Spey, three times mayor of Bodmin. As well as providing for his family, he also bequeathed the sum of 13s 4d for an “annual wassail cup” to promote “the continuance of love and neighbourly meetings”.[6] In 1803 Cornish historian, Richard Polwhele describes the ritual of saluting the apple trees [7] and the description by folklorists such as Margaret Courtney show that Wassails had become firmly embedded in 19th century Cornish Guise Dance tradition.[8]
Tom Miners and other members of the Celto-Cornish movement, collected some 8 versions of the song between 1914 and 1926.[9] These were mostly from West Cornwall with one from Bodmin. Some Guize Dancers just sang a Wassail as they travelled from house to house whilst others incorporated it into a play or included it in the repertoire of songs and dances with which they entertained people.
Tom Miners explains that if households visited were unwilling to give to the “Wassail Boys” the blessings would be turned to curses and insults, as in the verse:
The mistress and master, they won’t give a fig,
But set down by the fire and grunt like a pig.
A-wersey, A-wersey,
Joy come home with Johnny Wersey.[10]
[Johnny Wersey – a corruption of a Jolly Warzaill]
Inspired by the work of Tom Miners the Redruth Wassail was revived in 2016 by the Cornwall Cultural Association.[11]
Some Wassails recorded by Cornish Collectors in the 1920s:
Here we Come a Wassailing: Sung to James Thomas by W.J.Bennetts, Camborne 1926.
Wassail (Mrs Woolcock): Sung to Tom Miners and James E.Thomas by Mrs Woolcock, Camborne June 1926
Wassail Song(Benjamin Little): Sung to James E.Thomas by Benjamin Little (aged 79), Truro Oct 1925
Wassail Song (William Pappin): Sung to Tom Miners and James E.Thomas by William Pappin, Camborne, Nov.1924
Baring-Gould was sent Wassail songs from Truro, Grampound, Fowey and Jacobstow. Cecil Sharp noted a version from Redruth in 1913. During the 1930s the villagers of Whitemoor in the Clay Country darkened their faces with burnt cork before travelling around area singing the Wassail at Christmas.[12] The BBC archives hold recordings of Wassails from Malpas and Constantine from the 1950s[13] and Peter Kennedy included a version translated into Cornish in his 1975 collection Folk Songs of Great Britain and Ireland.[14]
Wassails in the Cornish Diaspora: The Winsconsin Wassail , A community of Cornish miners settled in Wisconsin 1830 / 1840 and took with them a Wassail. In 1946 the Wisconsin Folk Song Project recorded a Wassail from John Persons who recalled it being sung by Cornish “boys” in 1876 when he was 17. [15] This was in two parts the “Greeting” and the “Departure”.
The Bodmin Wassail:
With continuity back to the 17th century, the Bodmin Wassailers deserve special mention. In the 1970s the custom was supported by members of Bodmin Folk Club. They encouraged and augmented the singers who remembered the Bodmin song and have been instrumental in ensuring its continuation as a living tradition. Today the dress is top hat and tails, but they have blacked their faces in the past.[16]
Bodmin Wassail as recorded by Tom Miners from Edward Scantlebury circa 1916
Wassail! Wassail! Wassail! Wassail!
And Joy come to our jolly Wassail
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- Our Wassailbowl is full with apples and good spice
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Grant to taste it once or twice,
And Joy come to our jolly Wassail
Chorus
Wassail! Wassail! Wassail! Wassail!
And Joy come to our jolly Wassail
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-
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- Is there a butler here , dwelling in this house,
-
-
I hope he’ll take a foul croust
To enter the bowl with our Wassail
Chorus
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- This merry night for choosing King and Queen
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The Lord prayed down our life
That something may be seen in our Wassail
Chorus
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- We fellows are poor,
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can buy no house or land
Unless we do gain in our Wassail
Chorus
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- So now we must be gone
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to seek for more good cheer
As we have found it here in our Wassail
Chorus
Apple Wassails: Apple Wassails have become increasingly popular across Cornwall in the 21st Century. These are usually small intimate events organised by individual farms and orchards. The National Trust at Cothele organise a relatively large public event.
Cothele Wassail
Cothele Wassail (Apple Wassail) Circa 2010, courtesy of Rosie Fierek.
Come All Ye keen Wassailers Treading up the dirt
Lace up your boots and Tighten your shirt
Our path is Clear Our Purpose is plain
Let the new orchard blossom again and again
Chorus
Here’s toast to the Apples
And fruit of the wood
Good luck in the New Year
Tread firm in the mud
Let’s scatter the ash to promote new growth
And stir mother nature from her winter’s sloth
We’ll make lots of noise and dip our cider with bread
To drive away nick – Welcome Robin instead
Chorus
Merv Davey 2015
An Daras Cornish Folk Arts Project
[1] Richard Sermon, Wassail! The origins of a drinking toast, Third Stone number 46, Editor Neil Mortimer (Devizes, Third Stone, 2003) pp15-19. Updated notes Wassail Symposium, Stroud, Jan 2016. Also https://www.etymonline.com/word/Wassail accessed 07/11/2015
[2] James Ingram. The Saxon Chronicle, with an English Translation and Notes. (London, Longman, 1823). Paragraph date 835.
[3] Ordinalia, Bodlian Library Oxford manuscripts: Mss Bodley 791, Bodleian MSS 28556-28557, and National Library of Wales, Peniarth MS 428E.
[4] Ibid verse 492.
[5] Simon Reed. Wassailing, (London, Troy Books, 2013) pp.35-42.
[6] www.bodminwassail.uk
[7] Richard Polwhele, The History of Cornwall, (London, Cadell and Davies, 1803). Vol.1. Ch.3, p.48.
[8] Margaret A. Courtney. Cornish Feasts and Folk-Lore. Revised and Reprinted from the Folk-Lore Society Journals, 1886-87. (Penzance,Beare & co, 1890), p.14
[9] Journal of the Folk-Song Society, Vol. 8, No. 33 (Dec. 1929), pp. 111-124.
[10] Tom Miners, “The Fragments That are left” Old Cornwall Society Journal, Vol 2 no. 4 1932, p12.
[11] Simon Reed, Cornish Guizing Tradition, presentation, Boscastle Witchcraft Museum 6th January 2018.
[12] Alvin Trevenna conversation with author 6th June 2018, recalled his Grandfather describing the villagers using burnt cork on their faces to go Wassailing.
[13] BBC Sound Archive 25653 Malpas Wassailers 1957: BBC Sound Archive 23054 Joel Thomas Constantine 22-11-56
[14] Peter Kennedy. Folksongs of Britain and Ireland. London: Cassel, 1975.
[15] https://asset.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/ZCV4TEEBN2DJF8R/R/file-d8925.pdf
[16] Author- interview with Pete Marlow, long standing member of Bodmin Wassailers and historian of Wassail traditions in Cornwall, 19th April 2011.