A Herefordshire Wassail Experience: Old Twelfth Night, 17th January 2011, at the Yew Tree Inn, Preston on Wye, Herefordshire.

I have often thought that with the one life we have there is not enough time. For most of us it is a struggle to keep up with the demands of the modern work place, its conveyor belt routine and the frustrations it brings, often making the daily commute a depressing time. So it is a great privilege and joy to have escaped the restrictions of the workplace, albeit as pensioners, at a time when our generation may well be the last of the modestly superannuated classes.

As a result Sian and I found ourselves with both the opportunity and energy to attend our first Wassail. Instead of working late into the night to meet the next deadline as we used to, we were now spending the evening with a hundred or so other people encircling an old apple tree.

A great deal of hard work goes into producing a good harvest of any kind, and of course, more specifically, the apples and pears which make good Cider and Perry. In Herefordshire it is not the culinary apple which is at the centre of attention, although the county produces some of the best desert apples such a Garden of Eden deserves. No, it is the cider apple, with its bitter and sweet flavours, its tannin and its golden and quickly oxidized juice.

Good husbandry, careful processing and a large measure of good fortune go into producing these most sustainable beverages. As April and May approach the fear of late frosts threatening the newly formed buds is the first anxiety. Once that is over the next concern is the right combination of rain, warmth and sunshine during the summer and finally the hope that early autumn gales do not strip the trees of the immature fruit.Is it any wonder that our forebears hedged their bets by appealing to both the old and new religions?

Having gathered our strength in the pub we joined the crowd which had gathered in the car park armed with flaming torches. Led by the Foxwhelp Morris musicians, who were suitably protected from the rain by an umbrella and plastic sheets, we set off into the darkness to the sound of trumpet, fiddle and accordion. Somewhere among the throng were two men carrying shotguns still in their cases.

Looking back at the procession from the van of the parade was an unexpected shock. With no street lighting to lessen the impact, the sight of this snake of flickering light making its way in the darkness sent a shiver down the spine. We could have been in any century since the people of these islands depended for their survival on a meagre harvest produced by their own communal labour.

The traditional ceremony involved the wassailers forming a large circle round an old tree. We stood outside a circle of small unlit fires constructed of wood and straw while the Morris team took up position under the tree itself. There was much talk and song of the spirit of the tree, its guardian Old Meg and the general wish for plenty after a hard winter. At some point the fires were lit and the scene was transformed into one of a swirling confusion of smoke and flames with figures looming and fading as the wind changed. At another point, the end of a wassail song or recitation was met by a great noise of shouting, ringing bells and the reports of the two shotguns being used to fire blanks into the night air.

All of this would have been, and still is for some, intended to frighten off any evil spirits which might be lurking in the orchards. For others the evil is now represented by the intensification of production aided and abetted by the agro-chemical industry and the uniformity demanded by the profit obsessed supermarkets. In spite of cider apple prices being quite good last year, there is a sense that a more general malevolent spirit of rural betrayal is stalking our country lanes.
As we stood outside the circle of fires, each representing a month of the year and being warmed by these and the tree’s very own fire invoking Old Meg, our thoughts were of the New Year to come, not the past.

However, with the tree having been offered toast and been given a liberal dousing of cider, the crowd started to move off back down the lane. But one further act remained to be performed, almost without any witnesses and with no ceremony. One, and only one, of the encircling fires was trampled into extinction, leaving the others shining into the darkness. Of the twelve, this fire represented Judas and his betrayal, while the other ‘Apostles’ were left to bring the light of a new day. Strong stuff indeed, but it prompted in us the thought that although electric light has long since come to these rural communities, enlightenment as to modern rural affairs on the part of distant others, is yet to be gained.

We were now among the very last to leave the orchard and so we slowly made our way back through the rain and the gloom. The dark thoughts of a few minutes earlier were soon dispelled by the light, warmth, and good company of a well run public house, and, once the singing started, as an old miner friend of ours would have said across the other side of the Black Hill from here, ‘... well, boys bach, we ‘ad a triffic time’.