The Carol Singers, painted by William M. Spittle in 1893 (image source)

Playlist

* Broadwood Wassail Coope Boyes & Simpson et al. 2:48

* A Wassail Tune (Chestnut) Baltimore Consort 1:44

* Gower Wassail Quadriga Consort 3:27

Music notes

Broadwood Wassail I got this from the 2011 album Fire and Sleet and Candlelight published in Britain by the NoMasters Co-op folk music label founded by John Tams and Jim Boyes. The singers are Barry Coope, Jim and Georgina Boyes, Lester Simpson, and sisters Jo Freya and Fi Fraser.

This wassail song was documented earlier than most of the other wassails we know today. It was written down by Rev. John Broadwood and privately published in 1843 in his booklet with the unwieldly title: Old English Songs as now sung by the peasantry of the Weald of Surry and Sussex and collected by one who has learnt them by hearing them sung every Christmas from early childhood by the country people, who go about to the Neighbouring Houses, singing or “Wassailing” as it is called, at that season.

Song-catchers preferably document from whom they get the songs they collect, and they have tended to name wassails either after the places from which they were collected or with their opening words. Those conventions had not yet been established in 1843, and Rev. Broadwood did not give any names to his songs or identify specific locations for the wassails in his booklet. On the album Coope Boyes & Simpson et al. named this one Broadwood Wassail after its collector, but other artists who have recorded it have called it Sussex Wassail, A Wassail A Wassail, and simply Our Wassail.

[Update: I was so focused on the lyrics that I hadn’t noticed that it is set to the tune to God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen until Avery drew my attention to that in the comments after I posted this. All of the recorded versions under their various names use that same familiar melody, so I presume that Rev Broadwood documented that the local wassail song was sung that way (although that is also possible that that is a setting that someone suggested when Rev Braidwood’s 1843 booklet was first discovered and everyone has been following that suggestion.) It was quite common in earlier times for new songs to be set to already-familiar melodies.

God Rest Ye Merry is clearly the older of the two songs. It is widely acknowledged to date back to London in medieval times as a song that was sung by that city’s Waits, or night security guards. Those urban roots are significant. From the city, that song spread to the countryside, and there are a number of variations on it with its very religious lyrics that have been collected from rural areas. That makes it quite unlike almost all songs that have the word “wassail” in them, which rarely have any lyrics related to the nativity story.

Those lyrics might have been sung by rural wassailers, especially when they were visiting someone who was known to be very religious, but God Rest Ye Merry isn’t a wassail song as such. The songs well-documented antiquity was one of the main reasons that Victorian era people believed that there had been a practice of Christmas caroling with religious songs in medieval times.

Searches for more examples of such songs turned up too few examples of them to support that theory, although they did find a few more true medieval carols with religious lyrics such as The First Nowell and Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day.]

Here are the lyrics:

A wassail, a wassail, a wassail we beginWith sugar plums and cinnamon and other spices in.

Chorus (after each verse): With a wassail, a wassail, a jolly wassail, And may joy come to you and to our wassail.

Good master and good mistress, if you will so incline,Come send us out your roast beef, like wise you Christmas chine.

If you’ve any maids within your house, as I suppose you’ve none,They’d not let us stand a-wassailing so long on this cold stone.

For we’ve wassailed all this day long, and nothing could we find,But an owl in an ivy bush and her we left behind.

We’ll cut a toast all round the loaf, and set it by the fire,We’ll wassail bees and apple trees, unto your heart’ s desire.

Our purses they are empty, our purses they are thin,They lack a little silver to line ’em well within.

Hang out your silver tankard upon your golden spear,We’ll come no more a-wassailing, until another year.

A Wassail Tune (Chestnut) The name of this dance melody might be a bit of a stretch, because its use for wassailing appears to be somewhat speculative. But since this recording comes from the Baltimore Consort’s 1994 album Bright Day Star: Music for the Yuletide Season, and that authenticity-oriented Early Music group both named it as such and included it on their Yuletide album is a good enough excuse for me to include it here.

The tune is for an English country dance that is called Chestnut (or Dove’s Figary) in John Playford’s important 1651 tunebook The English Dancing Master, which was subtitled Plaine and easie Rules for the Dancing of Country Dances, with the Tune to each Dance. The speculation about the tune’s use for wassailing was in music historian and folklorist Margaret Dean-Smith’s commentary for her facsimile edition of that book. There, she alludes to the tune’s use as a wassail song along with several other possibilities.

In the liner notes, this arrangement is described as their reworking of a three-part setting of Playford’s melody-only tune by Marshall Barron, from his 1986 tune-book Early Playford for Early Instruments.

Gower Wassail was collected by A.L. Lloyd from the remote Gower Peninsula on the south-west coast of Wales, near Swansea. It came from the singing of Phil Tanner (1862-1950) when that great repository of folklore was 75 years old. Lloyd included it in his 1967 songbook Folk Song in England. I included a different rendition of this song in my Dec 21, 2022 newsletter/blog posting and there I gave a fairly detailed report about both the wassail and Phil Tanner, so I won’t repeat that information here. That posting also includes an essay about the roots of wassailing and other luck-visit songs and rituals.

This version is by the Austrian ensemble Quadriga Consort who specialize in bringing early British music to the continent, where for the most part the music is not familiar and is considered rather exotic. It is from their 1012 CD On a Cold Winter’s Day, which is subtitled Early Christmas Music and Carols from the British Isles. The singer is Elizabeth Kaplan.

A-wassail, a-wassail throughout this town,Our cup it is white and our ale it is brown.Our wassail is made of the good ale and true,Some nutmeg and ginger, it’s the best we can do .

Chorus (after each verse): Fol-dee-dol, fol-dee-dol-dee-dol, Fol-dee-dol-dee-dol, fol-dee-dol-dee-dee, Fol-dee-derol, fol-dee-der-dee, Sing too-ra-li-doh.

Our wassail is made of the elderberry bough,And so my good neighbours, we’ll drink unto thou,Besides all on earth, you’ll have apples in store,Pray let us come in for it’s cold by the door.

We hope that your apples will prosper and bearSo we may have cider when we call here next year.And where you have one barrel we hope you have tenSo we can have cider when we come here again

There’s a master and a mistress sitting down by the fireWhile we poor wassail boys do wait in the mire.And you pretty maid with your silver-headed pin,Please open the door and let us come in.

We know by the moon that we are not too soon,And we know by the sky that we are not too high.We know by the stars that we are not too far,And we know by the ground that we are within sound.

We jolly wassail boys are growing weary and cold,Drop a bit of small silver into our old bowl,And if we’re alive for another New Year,Perhaps we may call and see who does live here.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit midwintermusic.substack.com