Wassail !

Silhill Morris held  our first Wassail in January 2025 at Henley-in-Arden Station Bar with guest Morris sides Belle D'Vain, Aefgythe and White Hart. As well as lots of dancing we had singing and audience participation. We performed traditional customs to help ensure a good harvest, making a lot of noise to scare away bad spirits, (including firing a musket) and placing cider-soaked toast in the branches to attract good ones . We finished up with a music and song session in the bar. We will repeat the event in 2026 with a similar format.

What is Wassailing ?

Wassailing was a winter time tradition in many parts of England around Christmas and New Year where villagers would visit the wealthy landowners and farmers singing songs to wish them good fortune for the coming year and hoping to get given gifts of food and drink in return. This is similar to the later tradition of carol singers going from door to door singing for a few coins. They would often carry a wassail bowl , decorated with evergreen foliage which they would expect to be filled with cider or beer. In the western and southern counties where apple growing was important commercially the wassailers would perform customs to ensure a good apple crop in the coming year. They would shout, bang pots and pans , and sometimes fire guns into the apple tree branches to ward off bad spirits and they would hang pieces of toast, sometimes soaked in cider in the tree branches as an offering to good spirits.

Waes Hael !

The word  "Wassail" comes from the early english (anglo-saxon) greeting "waes hael" which meant "be thou well" or " be healthy". The appropriate response was " drinc hael !" meaning " drink to your health !"

Morris

 Although historically there is little evidence for Morris dancing associated with wassailing , these days morris sides have adopted wassailing as a tradition worth preserving and so now there is usually dancing at these events  

Henley Wassail 2025
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