"Wassail brews good ale, In the wane of the moon."] In Ritson's Antient Songs, 1790, p. 304, is given "A Carrol for a Wassell Bowl, to be sung upon Twelfth Day, at night, to the tune of Gallants come away,' from a collection of New Christmas Carols; being fit also to be sung at Easter, Whitsuntide, and other Festival Days in the year. No date, 12mo, b. l., in the curious study of that celebrated antiquary, Anthony à Wood, in the Ashmolean Museum. "A jolly Wassel Bowl, A Wassel of good ale, Good Dame, here at your door We are all maidens poor, With our Wassel. Our Wassel we do fill With apples and with spice, To taste here once or twice If any maidens be Here dwelling in this house, They kindly will agree To take a full carouse But here they let us stand With our Wasse.. Much joy into this hall And after, his good wife For our Wassel. Some bounty from your hands, We'll buy no house nor lands This is our merry night Of choosing King and Queen, Then be it your delight That something may be seen It is a noble part To bear a liberal mind; God bless our master's heart! For here we comfort find, And now we must be gone, Much joy betide them all, Our prayers shall be still, We hope, and ever shall, For this your great good will Macaulay, in his History and Antiquities of Claybrook, in Leicestershire, 1791, p. 131, observes: "Old John Payne and his wife, natives of this parish, are well known from having perambulated the hundred of Guthlaxton many years, during the season of Christmas, with a fine gewgaw which they call a Wassail, and which they exhibit from house to house, with the accompaniment of a duet. I apprehend that the practice of wassailing will die with this aged pair. We are by no means so tenacious of old usages and diversions in this country, as they are in many other parts of the world." In the Collection of Ordinances for the Royal Household, 4to, 1790, p. 121, we have some account of the ceremony of Wasselling, as it was practised at Court, on Twelfth Night, in the reign of Henry VII. From these we learn, that the ancient custom of pledging each other out of the same cup had now given place to the more elegant practice of each person having his cup, and that, "When the steward came in at the doore with the Wassel, he was to crie three tymes, Wassel, Wassel, Wassel; and then the chappell (the chaplain) was to answere with a songe." Under "Twelfth Day," an account will be found of the wassailing ceremonies peculiar to that season. At these times the fare, in other respects, was better than usual, and, in particular, a finer kind of bread was provided, which was, on that account, called Wassel-bread. Lowth, in his Life of William of Wykeham, derives this name from the Westellum or Vessel in which he supposes the bread to have been made. See Milner, ut supra, p. 421. [The earliest instance in which mention is made of Wastel-bread is the statute 51 Henry III., whence it appears to have been fine white bread, well baked. See Halliwell's Dictionary, p. 918.] The subsequent Wassailers' song, on New Year's Eve, as still sung in Gloucestershire, was communicated by Samuel Lysons, Esq. [and has since been given in Dixon's Ancient Poems, 8vo. 1846, p. 199.] The Wassailers bring with them a great bowl, dressed up with garlands and ribbons. "Wassail! Wassail! all over the town, Our toast it is white, our ale it is brown: Sure they will not let young men stand on the cold stone; 1 The name of a cow. Come, butler, come bring us a bowl of the best : But if you do bring us a bowl of the small, Hutchinson, in his History of Cumberland, i. 570, speaking of the parish of Muncaster, under the head of "Ancient Custom," informs us : "On the eve of the New Year the children go from house to house, singing a ditty which craves the bounty they were wont to have in old King Edward's days.' There is no tradition whence this custom rose; the donation is twopence, or a pye at every house. We have to lament that so negligent are the people of the morals of youth, that great part of this annual salutation is obscene, and offensive to chaste ears. It certainly has been derived from the vile orgies of heathens." SINGEN-EEN, Dr. Jamieson tells us, is the appellation given in the county of Fife to the last night of the year. The designation seems to have originated from the Carols sung on this evening. He adds, "Some of the vulgar believe that the bees may be heard to sing in their hives on Christmas Eve." Dr. Johnson tells us, in his Journey to the Western Islands, that a gentleman informed him of an odd game. At New Year's Eve, in the hall or castle of the Laird, where, at festal seasons, there may be supposed a very numerous company, one man dresses himself in a cow's hide, upon which other men beat with sticks. He runs with all this noise round the house, which all the company quits in a counterfeited fright; the door is then shut. At New Year's Eve there is no great pleasure to be had out of doors in the Hebrides. They are sure soon to recover from their terror enough to solicit for readmission which, for the honour of poetry, is not to be obtained but by repeating a verse, with which those that are knowing and provident take care to be furnished. The learned traveller tells us that they who played at this odd game gave no account of the origin of it, and that he described it as it might perhaps be used in other places, where the reason of it is not yet forgotten. It is probably a vestige of the Festival of Fools. The "vestiuntur pellibus Pecudum" of Du Cange, and "a man's dressing himself in a cow's hide," both, too, on the 1st of January, are such circumstances as leave no : room for doubt, but that, allowing for the mutilations of time, they are one and the same custom. [It was formerly the custom in Orkney for large bands of the common class of people to assemble on this eve, and pay a round of visits, singing a song, which commenced as follows: "This night it is guid New'r E'een's night, We're a' here Queen Mary's men ; And we're come here to crave our right, In Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, 1794, xii. 458, the minister of Kirkmichael, in the county of Banff, under the head of Superstitions, &c., says: "On the first night of January, they observe, with anxious attention, the disposition of the atmosphere. As it is calm or boisterous; as the wind blows from the south or the north-from the east or the west, they prognosticate the nature of the weather till the conclusion of the year. The first night of the new year, when the wind blows from the west, they call dàr-na-coille, the night of the fecundation of the trees; and from this circumstance has been derived the name of that night in the Gaelic language. Their faith in the above signs is couched in verses, thus translated: "The wind of the south will be productive of heat and fertility; the wind of the west, of milk and fish; the wind from the north, of cold and storm; the wind from the east, of fruit on the trees." In the Dialogue of Dives and Pauper, printed by Richard Pynson, in 1493, among the superstitions then in use at the beginning of the year, the following is mentioned: "Alle that take hede to dysmal dayes, or use nyce observaunces in the newe moone, or in the new yere, as setting of mete or drynke, by nighte on the benche, to fede Alholde or Gobelyn." [APPLE-HOWLING.-A custom in some counties, on New Year's Eve, of wassailing the orchards, alluded to by Herrick, and not forgotten in Sussex, Devon, and elsewhere. A troop of boys visit the different orchards, and, encircling the appletrees, they repeat the following words : "Stand fast root, bear well top, Pray God send us a good howling crop ; Every bough, apples enou; Hats full, caps full, Full quarter sacks full." |