On Sunday 12 January 2020, we greeted the trees with music, song and noise. We gave each tree a libation of  apple juice, and we hung toast in the branches. We danced in a circle. All of these activities are traditional ways of saying ‘Wassail’ – good health – to the orchard. And Wassailing  also happens to be an excellent way of keeping warm and making friends in the dark days of winter.  We hope that the trees appreciate our efforts and will reward us with a good harvest this year.  A massive thank you to everyone who turned up and put so much goodwill into it all, and especially to everyone who put so much into our Donations Pot.

Circle dance

Circle dance

At this year’s Wassail we had a demonstration from The Wympole Green Woodworking group who used a pole lathe to make a variety of items. Many thanks to them for the fascinating demo and for being so weather resistant. We hope to collaborate with them again – let us know if you’d be interested in attending a demo or a course of some kind.

On Sunday 14th January 2018 we held our tenth Wassail! Here are some photos that have come my way so far, hopefully I can put up some more to show you the Green Woodworking Group and everything else that went on. Let’s hope it did the trick and the apple trees will produce a bumper harvest this autumn.
 

Alright I know there’s Christmas first, (oh and Thanksgiving for our friends in the States) and they are both fun times, with plenty of opportunities to eat apples. BUT after all the festivities are done, and the cold grey days of January seem to have little to offer, there’s our Wassail. It’s a little later than Old Twelfth Night, for various reasons, but that gives us more time to plan and prepare and practice the Wassailing song.
If you’re wondering what a Wassail is, and how you do it, it’s best described as a celebration of apple trees and a chance to give them a traditional blessing and encourage them to fruit well in 2017. If that sounds a bit earnest, let me tell you that previous years have involved a wheelbarrow orchestra, folk musicians dressed in traditional ‘rags’, participants dressed in greenery and one as a penguin, some circle dancing and very loud and enthusiastic singing.
Put the date in your diary now, and look here and on our Facebook page for further updates.

At the heart of a wassail is a good old sing song – a carol, a wassail song or something more like a hymn. Many of them are regional, a lot of them go back to the nineteenth century and even earlier.  So here are  the three we will be singing on 10 January (we meet at 2:30pm at the orchard.) If you can play a (portable, acoustic) instrument, by all means bring it along and join in. Personally I can’t read music, and I can’t carry a tune in a bucket, but that’s not going to stop me. The  purpose of all the singing is to make enough noise to scare evil spirits from the orchard, so I should be fine!

I am very excited by the plans for the Wassail – it’s become a feature of the orchard year, something to get us out in the cold (and sometimes wet) and remind ourself that, eventually, spring blossoms must come.
This time we are looking into bringing a bit more of the wild wood into the orchard, in the person of the Holly King and the Ivy Queen. The story is a familiar one, another way of telling the endless narrative of the changing seasons – every year, after the harvest, the Holly King takes on the Oak King in single, mortal combat. Of course, the Holly King must win, but the Oak King will rise again in the summer. The winter cold belongs to the Holly King, and to the Ivy, his Queen. Together they represent life in the depths of winter, irrepressible greenery. Remember the carol “Of all the trees that are in the wood, the Holly wears the crown.”
So – be greenwood royalty for the day – come to our Wassail as a King or Queen and join in the revelry. There will be music, singing and dancing. You can signify your status with a few leaves, a mask, green clothing – or you can go full-on, like this marvellous Holly King from the performance company ‘The Lion’s Part’. Just mind those prickles….

Holly King from Bankside Wassail

Wassailling details: Meet at Trumpington Orchard Sunday 10th January at 2:30pm. Apart from costumes, wrap up warm, and bring a torch. The event is free but donations are appreciated. Be prepared to sing!

Jaqueline Douglas has sent us some more photos from this year’s Wassail – thanks very much Jacqueline they are great. Hopefully with all this attention the trees will produce a bumper crop, and at the very least we must have chased away any lurking ‘evil spirits’, harmful bugs and any other nasties from the orchard.
And here are some more – from Axel. Thanks so much for sharing these lovely images.