Two major events took place yesterday...
As with tradition, we removed the Christmas decorations.
And we also went out Wassailing. Our chosen tree this year was little Micha's birthday Apple tree, which received a good beating with a stick, it's branches hung with toast, and its roots anointed with cider. I'm not having much luck with my photography at the moment, so here we were doing the same thing back in 2013. And here is this year's Wassail poem....
The bread shall be white and the liquor be brown.
So here my old fellow I drink to thee
And the health of each other tree.
Well may ye blow, well may ye bear
Blossom and fruit both apple and pear
So that every bough and every twig
May bend with a burden both fair and big.
May ye bear us and yield us fruit such as stores
That the bags and chambers and house run o’er.
It was a cold night, and we drank hot Cider. Recipe: Cider, cloves, star anise, nutmeg, juice of a small orange, dash of ginger wine, and sugar to taste. Heat and serve.
No doubt we will now be finding the shops filled with Easter eggs.
29 comments:
I saw hot cross buns advertised yesterday. Who were you wassailing with?
A couple of friends from nearby. It was only a small affair.
Wassailing in the orchard as opposed to wassailing door to door. Very British tradition.
Yesterday three kings and a star on a stick appeared before our front door but as it happened we weren't there when they rang, so they didn't get anything to put in their tin. When someone gives a donation for the annual children's charity the local church is sponsoring the tallest wise man will write C+M+B and the year 2019 above the door usually with chalk.
The letters are the names of the magi - Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar.
Is it a local custom in France or English friends who follow the tradition?
We try to do the whole traditional bit; toast dipped in cider hung in the branches, a good beating, a dose of cider to the roots, and a traditional poem. One year we did it to an ailing Granny Smith, and that year it had an amazing crop!
I like the sound of that. It's good to keep these old traditions going.
What a beautiful tradition, I love traditions, I think they give a kind of peace and quiet.
Darn, you've written about this before and I didn't make a note to go out and beat one of our lemon trees. There will be a big **star** on the calendar for next year.
We were too busy dosing ourselves, once again.
It's nice knowing that we are doing something that our ancestors did; even if it has no real logic. I enjoy that continuity.
Naughty girl. Make a very BIG note for Jan 6th 2020. Your Lemons will thrive.
Just us I think. Our London friends wanted to see what it was all about.
I drink to thee Cro and Lady M and wish for you a heavy harvest at Haddocks ..... how’s that for an alliteration ! XXXX
I like the poem. Not sure about the combination of ingredients for the drink.
An alliteration of alarming altitude indeed.
Very warming on a very cold evening. The combination of Apple and Cinnamon is pretty classic.
Some people fire a shotgun into the branches of the tree. Saves a bit of pruning I suppose.
Sounds delicious! These traditions are pretty long gone, if they ever existed at all, in this neck of the woods and hadn't crossed my radar before this year (plus being raised in a good heathen home the Xmas calendar was confined to Xmas Day and Boxing Day). This may be my first Xmas loitering about your pages but I did already pick up the wassailing and Twelfth Night malarky from a history blog I follow, but yours is the first to show some pics of anyone really putting it into practice. I now love it all so much that I even had to do a Twelfth Night blog entry myself! Have you got one of those multihandled wassailing mugs?
I'm planning to plant a fig tree in my new backyard....I will have to begin this tradition with it next year! It sounds completely charming! Happy New Year Cro!
If I still had my shotgun, I might well do that too!
No, I wish I had. I might look around and see if I can find one. It would make the night complete.
Don't worry Jennifer, two trees you can't stop fruiting are Quinces and Figs. Plant a nice Apple, and perform your Wassail on that.
Wassailing isn't, as you will realise, a tradition here on Lewis. Even the first footing that everyone did when I came is no longer done by anyone I know.
This is not a tradition that made it to the new world. I'll bet the Puritans didn't go in for wassailing.
No Easter eggs as yet but Valentine's decor showed up January 2nd
I would have thought that first footing (with a lump of Coal or Peat) was very much a a continued Scottish tradition. It almost sounds Scots.
Too busy being 'puritan' behind the bike sheds perhaps?
Oh dear, Yes, I'd forgotten about St Val'. I'd better go and order my usual two dozen cards!
Cro I would agree with you but I've not seen or hear a first footer for years.
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