OBSERVATIONS ON POPULAR ANTIQUITIES. NEW YEAR'S EVE. Enter Wassel, like a neat sempster and songster, her page bearing a brown bowl, drest with ribbons and rosemary, before her.-BEN JONSON. THERE was an ancient custom, which is yet retained in many places, on New Year's Eve: young women went about with a Wassail Bowl of spiced ale, with some sort of verses that were sung by them as they went from door to door. Wassail is derived from the Anglo-Saxon Wæs hæl, Be in health. It were unnecessary to add, that they accepted little presents on the occasion, from the houses at which they stopped to pay this annual congratulation. "The Wassail Bowl," says Warton, "is Shakspeare's Gossip's Bowl, in the Midsummer Night's Dream. The composition was ale, nutmeg, sugar, toast, and roasted crabs or apples. It was also called Lamb's Wool." (Warton's ed. of Milton's Poems, Lond. 1785, 8vo, p. 51, note.) See also the Beggar's Bush, act iv. sc. 4, and the following in Polwhele's Old English Gent., p. 117,— "A massy bowl, to deck the jovial day, Flash'd from its ample round a sunlike ray. It welcomed with Lamb's Wool the rising year." It appears from Thomas de la Moore's Life of Edward II. that Was-haile and Drinc-heil were the usual ancient phrases of quaffing among the English, and synonymous with the "Come, here's to you," and "I'll pledge you," of the present day.1 [These pledge-words were frequently varied in olden time. In the tale of King Edward and the Shepherd, MS. Cantab. Ff. v. 48, one says, Passilodion, and the other, Berafrynde; a strange kind of humour, the amusement of which is difficult to be comprehended, though "I warrant it proved an excuse for the glass." In this tale the king says,— "Passilodyon that is this, Who so drynkes furst i-wys, Wesseyle the mare dele: Berafrynde also I wene, Hit is to make the cup clene, And fylle hit efte fulle wele." But the best explanation of Wassail is that given by Robert de Brunne, in the following passage :— "This is ther custom and her gest This explanation is stated to have been given on Vortigern's first interview with Rowena, or Ronix, the daughter of Hengist, the latter kneeling before him, and presenting a cup of wine, made use of the term. Vortigern, not comprehending the words of Rowena, demanded their meaning from one of the Britons. A fragment, preserved by Hearne, carries the origin of the term to a much earlier period.] 1 Verstegan gives the subsequent etymology of Wassail: "As was is our verb of the preter-imperfect tense, or preter-perfect tense, signifying have been, so was, being the same verb in the imperative mood, and now pronounced wax, is as much as to say grow, or become; and Waesheal, by corruption of pronunciation, afterwards came to be Wassail."-Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, ed. 1653, p. 101. Wassel, however, is sometimes used for general riot, intemperance, or festivity. See Love's Labour Lost, v. 2. A wassel candle was a large candle lighted up at a feast. See 2 Henry IV. i. 2. The learned Selden, in his Table Talk (article Pope), gives a good description of it: "The pope," says he, "in sending relicks to princes, does as wenches do to their Wassels at New Year's tide-they present you with a cup, and you must drink of a slabby stuff, but the meaning is, you must give them money, ten times more than it is worth." The following is a note of the same learned writer on the Polyolbion, song 9: "I see," says he, "a custome in some parts among us: I mean the yearly Was-haile in the country on the vigil of the new yeare, which I conjecture was a usuall ceremony among the Saxons before Hengist, as a note of health-wishing (and so perhaps you might make it Wish-heil), which was exprest among other nations in that form of drinking to the health of their mistresses and friends. 'Bene vos, bene vos, bene te, bene me, bene nostram etiam Stephanium,' in Plautus, and infinite other testimonies of that nature, in him, Martial, Ovid, Horace, and such more, agreeing nearly with the fashion now used: we calling it a health, as they did also, in direct terms; which, with an idol called Heil, antiently worshipped at Cerne in Dorsetshire, by the English Saxons, in name expresses both the ceremony of drinking and the new yeare's acclamation, whereto, in some parts of this kingdom, is joyned also solemnity of drinking out of a cup, ritually composed, deckt, and filled with country liquor." In Herrick's Hesperides, p. 146, we read, "Of Christmas sports, the Wassell Boule, Of Blind-man-buffe, and of the care In the Antiquarian Repertory (i. 218, ed. 1775) is a woodcut of a large oak beam, the antient support of a chimneypiece, on which is carved a large bowl, with this inscription on one side, [Wass-heil, and on the other Drinc-heile. The bowl rests on the branches of an apple-tree, alluding, perhaps, to part of the materials of which the liquor was composed.] The ingenious remarker on this representation observes, that it is the figure of the old Wassel Bowl, so much the delight of our hardy ancestors, who, on the vigil of the New Year, never failed to assemble round the glowing hearth with their cheerful neighbours, and then in the spicy Wassel Bowl (which testified the goodness of their hearts) drowned every former animosity-an example worthy modern imitation. Wassel was the word, Wassel every guest returned as he took the circling goblet from his friend, whilst song and civil mirth brought in the infant year. A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine (liv. May, 1784, p. 347) tells us, that "The drinking the Wassail Bowl or Cup was, in all probability, owing to keeping Christmas in the same manner they had before the feast of Yule. There was nothing the Northern nations so much delighted in as carousing ale, especially at this season, when fighting was over. It was likewise the custom, at all their feasts, for the master of the house to fill a large bowl or pitcher, and drink out of it first himself, and then give it to him that sat next, and so it went round. One custom more should be remembered; and this is, that it was usual some years ago, in Christmas time, for the poorer people to go from door to door with a Wassail Cup, adorned with ribbons, and a golden apple at the top, singing and begging money for it; the original of which was, that they also might procure lamb's wool to fill it, and regale themselves as well as the rich." 991 [The following doggrel lines were communicated by a clergyman in Worcestershire, but the occasion and use of them appear to be unknown, and it is not unlikely some corruption has crept into them : Milner, on an ancient cup (Archæologia, xi. 420), informs us, that "The introduction of Christianity amongst our ancestors did not at all contribute to the abolition of the practice of wasselling. On the contrary, it began to assume a kind of religious aspect; and the Wassel Bowl itself, which, in the great monasteries, was placed on the Abbot's table, at the upper end of the Refectory or eating-hall, to be circulated amongst the community at his discretion, received the honorable appellation of 'Poculum Charitatis.' This, in our universities, is called the Grace-cup." The Poculum Charitatis is well translated by the toast-master of most of the public companies of the city of London by the words, "A loving cup." After dinner the master and wardens drink" to their visitors, in a loving cup, and bid them all heartily welcome." The cup then circulates round the table, the person who pledges standing up whilst his neighbour drinks to him. |