In the cider-producing counties in the South West of England (primarily Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Gloucestershire, and Herefordshire) or South East England (Kent, Sussex, Essex, and Suffolk), as well as Jersey, wassailing refers to a traditional ceremony that involves singing and drinking to the health of trees on Twelfth Night in the hopes that they might better thrive. The purpose of wassailing is to awaken the cider apple trees and to scare away evil spirits to ensure a good harvest of fruit in the Autumn.[18] 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 or a processional tune to be played/sung from one orchard to the next; the wassail Queen is then lifted into the boughs of the tree where she places toast soaked in wassail from the clayen cup as a gift to the tree spirits (and to show the fruits created the previous year). In some counties, the youngest boy or “Tom Tit” will stand in for the Queen and hang the cider-soaked toast in the tree. Then an incantation is usually recited.

A folktale from Somerset reflecting this custom tells of the Apple Tree Man, the spirit of the oldest apple tree in an orchard, and in whom the fertility of the orchard is thought to reside. In the tale a man offers his last mug of mulled cider to the trees in his orchard and is rewarded by the Apple Tree Man who reveals to him the location of buried gold.

If you have occasion to be in the West Country in January, you : might investigate the ancient tradition of wassailing. (And who wouldn’t go to England in January?) The word is actually a toast that comes from the Norse via Middle English, wees hail, meaning “be well and healthy.” It is a pre-Christian rite that has certain animistic elements. This is one of those mysterious rites that Americans have a hard time understanding. Fortunately, the Hecks have been hosting a wassail in their orchards for several years, and Chris was happy to describe what happened in 2013 “Well, there is a wassail song and all the children brought along pots and pans, which they bang together. That frightens the evil spirits away. A couple of chaps brought their shotguns down and we fire those up in the air; again, that’s to ward the evil spirits away. They pour cider around the roots of the tree.” (I gather this is to : wake up the tree in spring.) “And to welcome the good spirits, you put toast up in the trees for the robin. I suppose he looks after the orchard.” Of course, celebrants do plenty of toasting, and they have : ample supplies of cider to keep them merry.