Wassailing
the Fruit Trees
Wassailing was an annual custom in Britain where
fruit orchards were common right up to the early 20th century. It entails celebrating
good heath to the fruit trees and an encouragement to fruit well, usually taking
place early on in the New Year on the 17th of January (old twelfth night). You
go out and toast the trees and throw your toast over the trunk of the largest
tree. Dancing around them and generally making merry is equally as effective.
Wassail
the trees, that they may beare,
You many a plum and many a
peare,
For more or less fruits they
will bring
As you do give them a wassailing.
Robert Herrick1591 - 1674
