Hey Blog! This week is about a celebration and tradition that has been going around for about a thousand years, and maybe a bit more. This week, I come a-wassailing!
The tradition of wassailing is very ancient, performed by people carrying flaming torches who march shouting through an apple orchard. But it isn’t as crazy as that really, nor so stupid. It’s a festival in which participants seek to, as this wassail we went to said, “wake the trees with noise and fire” and bless them so they give a greater crop next year. We attended one at Wessington, or more specifically at the Amber Valley Vineyard three days ago. Here they have planted a small apple orchard to make cider, and it was through this that the highlight of the evening came.
The first thing we did was go to the drinks table (typical!) where the adults were all rationed a cup of mulled cider free with the tickets. Unfortunately, the children were not allowed this (Pity – in the mediaeval period children were allowed alcoholic drinks, admittedly very weak ones, but still…) so I had to have a cup of hot chocolate instead. We then watched the T’owd (said Toad) Man Morris Dancers do some crazy dancing. It may sound like some badly spelt half-frog-half-man people who dance around in a pond, but no – T’owd man is a carving in the Wirksworth church, said to be the world’s oldest representation of a miner. Wirksworth is the town where these dancers are from, and t’owd is the local word for old: the nearby village to where I live is called Ambergate, but has the old name of T’owdmoor, meaning the old moor. They’re quite right even if they did mean the amphibians – Mum goes out on a toad patrol in the spring to rescue the animals from cars!
Either way, these dancers were very good. Morris Dancing includes people skipping around each other holding sticks and then hitting another person’s stick like swords. I am considering whether to go and take part in this kind of dancing, as it certainly looked like my style – more than ballet or tap dancing…! I also felt at this point that the entire atmosphere, from the bonfire, which had just been lit, to the dancing, to the fake horse’s skull, to the shouting, to the costumes, all matched PERFECTLY The Dark is Rising, the book I reviewed two weeks ago! Next we went over to the bonfire. It was perfectly laid, and the top sticks fell at just the right place to keep it burning – I wish I could lay a fire like that! We watched the flames for a while, and I tried to hold them – I think I succeeded! However, shortly afterwards, it was time for the big event – the wassailing! We all went forward to the apple grove…
Where they were handing out flaming torches. Apparently, this year, there is a national shortage of flaming torches – something to do with the warehouse’s roof collapsing – so we were lucky to have them! I managed to get one, and then the march started. The tradition involves carrying these torches through the orchard, shouting as you do so, and giving the trees toast soaked in cider. Maybe this is where the saying “Raise a toast” comes from: the expression is often said at the winter festival and this is the time when you raise the toast to the boughs of the apple tree! More likely not though. Either way, when the trees were all blessed, it was time to go home. However, it was a very enjoyable evening!
