It may come as a bit of a surprise, but it’s true: The early Americans who arrived here on the South Fork in the 1640s, despite being of Puritan stock, got fairly rowdy each December. Have you heard of wassailing? If you’ve ever been Christmas-caroling the word might ring a bell, from the most famous wassailing tune that remains among the seasonal canon, “Here We Come a-Wassailing.” It is pretty much all that’s left of a centuries-old, possibly millennium-old Yuletime tradition:
Here we come a-wassailing
Among the leaves so green;
Here we come a-wand’ring
So fair to be seen.
Love and joy come to you,
And to you your wassail too. . . .
Now that you’ve been reminded of the word wassail, do you know what the heck it was? The American culture has more or less forgotten. Wassailing is a drinking tradition so old it is mentioned in Beowolf.
The word was kind of the Middle English equivalent of “whassup?”
Literally, the words wæs hæil meant “be of good health!’ in Middle English. This apparently came from the Old Norse ves heill. It is thought that the drinking cheer of wassail would be followed by the phrase drink hail (“drink good health’”), and that this greeting or cheer was introduced to Britain by Danish-speaking invaders, a.k.a., Vikings. By the 12th century, everyone considered “wasshail and “drink hail!” to be an English tradition.
Judging by the rhyme schemes of various surviving Christmas carols, the word seems to have been pronounced was-sle-ing, not wass-ALE-ing: Here we come a wassle-ing, et cetera.
Wassailing was basically Christmas caroling, but with a giant bowl of booze. The bowl is referred to in some ancient wassail songs as made of ash or white oak, and sometimes it is referred to as a “milk pail.” The drink in the booze bowl apparently was, in the Middle Ages, white with milk and had eggs beaten into it, more like eggnog than a steaming spiced punch. But by the 17th and 18th centuries it was likely to hold ale or wine mulled with crabapples and sometimes expensive and exotic spices from the East: ginger, clove, nutmeg, cinnamon — all the spices and aromas we still associate with the season today.
According to the historians at Colonial Williamsburg, by the 13th century, revelers were dipping cakes and fine bread in the wassail bowl. Supposedly, this practice of floating pieces of toast in the boozy wassail bowl gave rise to our use of the verb and noun toast as a drinking tribute.
Wassailing came to America along with the colonists. It was not exactly the decorous religious practice we associate with the Mayflower descendants. Accounts survive of reckless and wanton wassailers from Boston to Virginia.
It’s hard to grasp the extent to which life, before we all disappeared indoors to watch Elf alone, was communal in previous centuries. Life was, basically, lived out in the street and in the commons. Markets and fairs were communal gatherings; news was learned on the street, from a crier or from bills posted on walls; life was less private. So it makes sense that two ancient wintertime traditions that made it from England here to the New World were festivities in which carousers went door to door: mumming (or “mummering”) and wassailing.
Some of the wassailing traditions were theatrical, too, and it seems the two traditions were intermixed to some degree.
Some wassailing traditions in England, for example in Somerset, appear to have roots in ancient pagan rites: the revelers would cover themselves in leafy costumes — tree branches, leaves — and carry a pretty lass out into an orchard to feed a choice apple tree with a splash of cider and to honor it with a loaf of bread stuck in a crook in the branches.
Wassailing was an opportunity for disorder. Many of the wassailers and mummers’ costumes involved cross-dress. Wassailers seem to have felt at liberty to push open doors and climb through windows to gain entry. Some wassailers sang threats of mischief if they weren’t given a monetary tip — or if the inhabitant of the house refused to open the door or join in the drinking. It was a bit like trick-or-treating at Halloween: an excuse to demand money or something to eat, in exchange for your song.
In the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Puritan fathers banned mumming and wassailing and other unsanctified celebrations of Christmas for a time because it was getting out of hand and causing property damage each December. It is pertinent to note, however, that there is documentary evidence that our coastal neighbors on Nantucket and in the town of Marblehead, Mass., ignored this brief but famous Puritan ban on Christmas and that wassailing and disorder continued unabated in those seaside towns.
In Salem on Christmas night in 1679, a group of young rowdies woke up a family named Rowden, who were known for brewing a tasty plum wine called “perry.” The family was annoyed and told them to go away. Then things turned ugly: “They threw stones, bones, and other things” through the door and against the house, according to a contemporary account. “They beat down much of the daubing in several places and continued to throw stones for an hour and a half with little intermission.” The wassailers also broke down a stone wall and stole five or six pecks of apples from a cellar.” Hardly the sober Noel of peace and reflection we associate with Puritans, is it?
Another Christmas riot broke out in Deerfield, Mass. in 1794, when a shopkeeper named John Birge — who wrote down his complaint in his account book — was annoyed by the arrival of “Nightwalkers—or rather blockheads” at his establishment about 2 o’clock in the morning, three days before Christmas. Birge refused to open his door. The wassailers broke a windowpane, trying to get in, and carried away some food and clothing. Wrote Birge: “I cannot see why it was much better than Burglary!”
There don’t seem to be any surviving accounts of similar rowdiness here in East Hampton in those faraway times, but a few truths imply we likely partook: For one thing, the people of Massachusetts were not just culturally similar to those of East Hampton, they were from the same region of England and, in many cases, actually blood-related. For another, Nantucket and Marblehead were much closer to Bonac in the 17th century, when commerce and travel took place over water, than they are today. So customs would likely have been similar.
It wouldn’t be wise or reasonable to endorse drunken and disorderly behavior, much less window-breaking or threats, still, we at East support the spirit of the wassail bowl and would love to see the custom revived — if perhaps in rather more tame form. A hot punch bowl carried in the snow to neighbors’ houses?
Sounds mighty fine to us.
Victorian Wassail Punch
Serves 4 to 6
INGREDIENTS:
6 small apples, cored
4 1/2 C. beer or hard cider
1 3/4 C. sugar
2 cinnamon sticks, crushed using a mortar and pestle
2 pinches ground cloves
Freshly grated nutmeg, to taste
1 lemon, sliced
1 tsp. vanilla
Preheat oven to 375. Score apples around the middle using sharp knife. Place into ovenproof dish and roast for 45 minutes, or until softened and skins split.
Meanwhile, heat the beer or cider in a saucepan over low heat. Add spices, stir well, and continue until the surface of
the liquid starts to foam.
Pour mix into a large bowl. Add lemon slices and roasted apples, and serve hot.