When all twelve days of Christmas were holidays people would celebrate the last day before returning to work on the land by lighting bonfires and baking cakes. Now it is the last day to take down the Christmas decorations to avoid bad luck and the last day of eating a daily mince pie for good luck.............if that's what you've been doing!
Wassailing the Apple trees on Twelfth Night (or old Twelfth Night on the 17th) still takes place in some cider making regions of this country. Cider is poured on the apple roots and toast soaked in cider hung on the branches of the trees then shots fired through the branches to frighten off evil spirits and songs song to encourage the trees to fruit.
Old apple tree, we wassail thee, and hope thou wilt bear
For the lord doth know where we shall be,till apples come another year
To bear well and bloom well so merry let us be
Let every man take off his hat and shout to the old apple tree..........
SHOUT ......
Old Apple tree we wassail thee, and hope that thou will bear
Hats full, caps full, three bushel bags full,
And a little heap under the stair.
Wassail means "be healthy"and as farm workers were often paid in cider during the harvest it was important the trees were healthy and produced plenty of fruit......... at one time there were 400 varieties of cider apples and an orchard in every village on every farm.
Here's some Wassailling from Somerset in 1979
Then of course there is the Twelfth Night that is the comedy by William Shakespeare. This is the only play by Shakespeare that I've ever read and that was because we "did" it for O Level back in 1971.......(Along with Jane Eyre and some poems from the Book of Narrative Poetry) Although I failed English Literature at least it didn't put me off reading because I haven't stopped reading since then................ But no more Shakespeare or Brontes.
Back Soon
Sue
Wassailing takes place in a little village near Minehead on 17th January too.
ReplyDeleteJulie xxx
I couldn't find any wassailing events in Suffolk - sadly
DeleteMy old apple trees are in for a surprise tonight then. I forgot to do it last year, the apples still grew, but not nearly so well!
ReplyDeleteI need to get some cider
DeleteDreaded O level literature, we did Chaucer The Pardoner’s Tale, Macbeth and Lord of the Flies, I hated all three texts but like you it didn’t put me off reading.
ReplyDeleteLooking back I wonder how it took 2 years to do one play, one novel and a few poems - it must have been so boring to teach as well as to learn
DeleteI never realised how ignorant I was about old folklore and customs until I read your posts on the subject.
ReplyDeleteI would be ignorant too about some things but the books I have on my shelves are a great help!!
DeleteYou can't pass O level English Literature with speed reading.
ReplyDeleteO level was very very slow reading - like 2 years to do just one book, one play and a few poems. What books did you do for O levels?
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DeleteI have my O level English Literature paper in front of me now, dated 27 June 1968. We studied Shakespeare: King Henry IVth Part 1. An Anthology of Longer poems which were Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Tennyson's The Lotus Eaters. Sohrab and Rustum is still one of favourite poems and left a lasting mark on me. The book we studied was Great Expectations, still one of my favourite books and a good example of how Dickens knew how to craft a story. The instructions on the exam paper of what questions to answer, in what combinations, almost needed an O level to understand them. I clearly did at the time because I passed. I enjoyed English Lit and do not have any memories of it being slow or long and we did read other books in depth at the same time. I remember Far From the Madding Crowd and Macbeth at the same time.
DeleteAnother one here put off literature by the way it was taught in school! Hated Chaucer and was particulary upset by the ignoring of Scottish writers at that time. Like you Sue, I read a lot, although much of it on my kindle as I can’t take many books in our motorhome. I am currently behind with my reading as the fiendish Christmas jigsaw took me six days to complete!
ReplyDeleteLuckily I have avoided Chaucer except when we went to Canterbury years ago and around a Canterbury Tales thing that was fascinating.
DeleteIf I remember right we did one of Rabbie Burns narrative poems among others
So much contoversy over which day is really Twelfth Night! I'm with you: it's the sixth and today my tree comes down. Fortuitously, I have just one mince pie left!
ReplyDelete5th or 6th - or somewhere around now!
DeleteI believe it is the sixth. It's my eldest brother's birthday tomorrow (7th) and my Mum told me that she always kept the decorations up until after his birthday.
DeleteI'm afraid my tree will have to wait until either tomorrow or, more likely, Tuesday as I'm not there today. I think I will enjoy one more evening of sparkly lights (Monday evening) before the grand dismantlement. I feel sad - it's been good company over Christmas.
ReplyDeleteAs for mince pies - no thanks. Too many syns! ;-)
xx
I'm glad I took things down when I did as I've been ill on and off ever since.
DeleteI had a great apple harvest last year and nothing to do with me singing to the tree! I love the old customs though - even more to know how they originated.
ReplyDeleteThe Brontes are heavy going and best read when in Yorkshire and on the moors (with a flask of Yorkshire tea made with Yorkshire water!!!) where you can really feel the bleakness and isolation often portrayed in their books. Haworth might be a busy and interesting place now but back then it would have felt quite cut off from the world and a hard life - writing in the Victorian romantic period they certainly used this to set the scene and create the drama in their books. I much prefer the gentleness and humour of Jane Austen.
I'm put off by anything labelled as a "classic"!
DeleteA lone voice here:defending (and loving) Bronte(Jane Eyre a real favorite) and Shakespeare! I also confess to being an English Lit teacher in my distant past. Presumably Sue, you did other topics in the two year O level syllabus. If not, you were, sadly, badly taught. I worked in F.E. Colleges so can't say how it worked in school. Give Jane Eyre another try, you never know!
ReplyDeleteNo honestly, the whole two years were just Jane Eyre, Twelfth Night and about half a dozen poems from the Book of Narrative verse.This was the syllabus was from a London examination board even though we were in suffolk and most other grammar schools at the time used a Cambridge syllabus. I failed but passed 6 other O levels which got me a job as a library assistant. There was no careers advice at all and no encouragement to stay on to A levels. Choices for girls who left at 16 were secretarial college, nursing or working in a bank!
DeleteI love these interesting facts. My poor old apple tree was very diseased and poorly last year. I don’t have any cider but I wonder if that would be a pest killer. There is often wisdom in these old ways.
ReplyDeleteI think the cider was more to keep people warm while they were larking about in the orchard on a January night!
DeleteTree down yesterday...night used to come before day! Though Candlemas is the final time for decs to come down. Going to do some wassailing on evening of 16th...so much controversy...so many answers! I did Macbeth and The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty for O’level English. x
ReplyDeleteMy wassailing will have to wait until Old 12th night on the 16th/17th as I've no cider or apple juice and haven't been well
DeleteLovely post! We have Wassail at Christmas but not when we're 'supposed' to lol. I have to admit that the decorations came down before the new year. Not quite sure why we do that but we do.
ReplyDeleteDon't panic if you haven't taken your tree down on the 6th! Apparently it's not unlucky if you leave it until Candlemas (Feb 2), when it's safe again to dismantle it. I'm going to throw caution to the wind and pull mine apart today (7th in this neck of the woods).
ReplyDeleteHere in Corfu, and the rest of Greece, the Epiphany services commorate the Baptism of Christ. Harbour communities throw a cross into the sea and the young men dive in to retrieve it. Very brave this year as we had heavy snow on Friday and Saturday and it was below zero.
ReplyDeleteWe also have the blessing of the cross here in the North Sea off Great Yarmouth, in Sue's neighbouring county Norfolk, when the youngest boy in the Greek Community traditional dives in with the men to retrieve the cross, It is very cold here too and the North Sea will not be a sea to linger in.
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