A do-it-yourself wassailing kit - by Sue Purkiss

It's that time of year again, and people are wassailing right, left and centre down here in the west country. So if you want a reminder of how to do it, here's my post from last year. Never mind the wind and the rain - you owe it to your apple trees!

I wasn't particularly aware of the ancient custom of wassailing until recently. Okay, about this time of year you tend to see pictures in the local paper of people with green faces cavorting among apple trees - but hey, I live a mere stone's throw from Glastonbury, where the streets are paved with crystals and littered with spell books, and where every year they have a Goddess Conference at which the place is FILLED with people with green faces - not to mention magical wells, a conflux of ley lines and a 2000 year-old thorn tree. (Well, that was actually vandalised a few years ago, but I hear there are a few cuttings in the care of the fairy kingdom under Wearyall Hill - or possibly at Worthy Farm under the care of Michael Eavis.) So green faces don't raise an eyebrow in these parts.

Goddesses at Chalice Well in Glastonbury.

But, as I've mentioned before in this place, I fairly recently joined a choir. We sing a lot of folk songs, and at this time of year, when Christmas has come and gone, we sing a Wassail Song. I don't know the words off by heart - our leader, Issy, sings it first and we follow her - but they are very similar to these, which I found on the web.

'Old apple tree, we wassail thee and hope that thou shalt bear,
For the Lord doth know where we shall be come apples another year.
For to bloom well and to bear well, so merry let us be,
Let every man take off his hat and shout out to the old apple tree.
   Three cheers for the apple tree: hip hip...'

Well, it's a very jolly tune and we like singing it, so we make quite a racket, and I only hope it's loud enough for the apple trees of Cheddar to hear and be enthused. Because the purpose of wassailing is to encourage them, as the song says, 'to bloom well and to bear well'. It's entirely logical. I often talk to plants. I had quite a chat with a Christmas rose the other day, congratulating it on flowering so beautifully when all its predecessors have singularly failed to thrive; and I always apologise to shrubs before I give them a severe pruning, and explain to them that it's for their own good. I find these little courtesies make all the difference, and I'm sure they do to the apple trees as well.

There used to be lots of apple orchards in Cheddar when we first moved here thirty or so years ago. But over the years, most of them have been grubbed up in favour of more houses, and in Somerset generally, the orchards for many years seemed to be dwindling. But since the growth in popularity of cider over the last few years (Thatchers is just down the road), orchards are back in favour, and so is wassailing.

So I thought I'd look into the history of it.

Wassailing in the olden days.

Apparently 'wassail' comes from 'Waes hael!', the Anglo-Saxon greeting and toast which means 'Good Health!' Its purpose is to wake the trees up and scare away any evil spirits, thus ensuring a good harvest of fruit in the autumn. This happens on Twelfth Night - but usually, it being such an old and historical custom, it takes place not on the 6th January, but on the 17th, because this would have been Twelfth Night (or Old Twelvey, as we country folk apparently call it) before the introduction of the new-fangled and totally unnecessary Gregorian calendar in 1582.

The correct procedure is to choose a Wassail King and Queen, who lead a procession of interested parties round the local orchards. At each one, the Queen is lifted up into one of the trees, and she presents it with a piece of toast soaked in the wassail drink, which seems to be a kind of cider punch. This is a gift to the tree spirits. (Here's a recipe - I can't vouch for its authenticity, but it sounds rather nice.)

Then everybody sings the song, after which they shout and bang pots and pans and drums and generally make as much noise as they can to drive the evil spirits out. (Presumably the good spirits put their hands over their ears after eating up their toast.) Then I think they probably finish off the cider punch, and dance round the fire a bit.

Below is a video from YouTube of a wassail in Gloucestershire. I'd personally like to see a bit more attention to wearing appropriate clothing (see picture above, of a wassail at Brent Knoll, just down the A38 from here) and I'm really not happy about the plastic bags, but it's a good and lusty rendition of the song.

So there you are. I've given you a day's notice, and with a bit of practice you'll soon master the song - so if you have apple trees, prepare to wassail them. Unfortunately, they really don't grow well in our garden...

'Cooking on a Prayer' by Karen Maitland

Reconstruction of 19th Century Kitchen

Museum of Transport and Technology, Auckland

Photo: Jorge Royan

This morning I spent ages hunting through my bookshelves in search of a particular book that I was sure had a white cover, and which eventually proved to be red. But in the process, I rediscovered several books that I had forgotten I owned, including a cloth-bound volume entitled ‘Recipe Book, Swinton Parish Church Bazaar, St Stephen’s Stall, 1911’. The recipes were contributed by members of the parish and the book was printed to raise money for charity, though how it came to be in my possession, I have no idea.

Some of the dishes are wonderfully evocative of the period: how to make potted sardines; lobster cutlets; stuffed cod with brown gravy; and oxtail soup. (I can’t remember when I last saw an oxtail in a supermarket.) But it was the ‘useful household tips’ at the end that really distracted me from what I was supposed to be doing. One, contributed by the Rev. B.O.F. Heywood, said the way to cook the perfect boiled egg (presumably on his housekeeper’s day off) was to place it carefully in boiling water and time the cooking by reciting the famous poem by Felicia Hemans, ‘The Boy Stood on the Burning deck.’

Using words to time recipes is something that has gone on for centuries. In the Middle Ages, prayers or psalms were used to time cooking and brewing. Medieval cookery books frequently state that a sauce should be simmered for the time it takes to recite two Ave’s or a fish should be boiled for three pater nosters. This method would have been highly effective in the crowded kitchens of manor houses or monasteries where many dishes were being prepared at the same time, and several scullions or young servants might be working under the direction of a cook.

Abbot's Kitchen, Glastonbury with ruined wall of

the abbot's dining hall.

Credit: Rodw

In the 14th century abbot’s kitchen in Glastonbury, which has been wonderfully restored, there were four fireplaces that could be used to cook everything from spit roasted meats to sauces and in the Middle Ages a narrow gantry ran across the kitchen above the servants’ heads so that the master of the kitchen could climb up and observe all the activity below, pacing back and forth to yell down instructions to those peeling, chopping, basting, and pounding. In all the noise, heat and bustle any inexperienced servants must have been grateful for the simple instructions of reciting something so familiar as a prayer they knew by rote.

Part of the Interior of the Abbot's Kitchen, Glastonbury

Credit: NotFromUtrecht

Using prayers or psalms also had a protective element and they became viewed as a charm that would ward off food poisoning and accidents. This would be especially important when in an abbot's or nobleman’s kitchen where valuable spices, saffron and even gold leaf were part of the recipe, and servants ruining a dish might fear being beaten or dismissed. Demons were thought to lurk between the leaves of worts such as lettuce and cabbage which could make you ill if you swallowed them, likewise in rising bread. Crosses were cut into stalks and dough to drive them out, but you certainly didn’t want them diving into something else, so the prayers helped to banish evil from the hearth.

One of the unforeseen consequences of the Reformation must have been the number of dishes that were spoiled by cooks who suddenly found they could no longer time their cooking by reciting Ave’s without arousing suspicions that they were still practising ‘popery’. There must have been much secret muttering and mumbling going on in some kitchens.

It is hardly surprising then, that in the witchcraft trials of later centuries those unfortunate enough to be interrogated were often accused of timing the brewing of their spells or even their suppers by reciting the Lord’s Prayer backwards or muttering the cursing Psalm 109.

In the 19th and first part of the 20th century, instead reciting poems or prayers to time cooking, rhyming poetry was being used to memorize the recipe itself, often because those employed as domestic staff did not read well, or simply because it wasn’t practical to constantly consult a recipe as you cooked in a busy kitchen where a valuable book was likely to be ruined by steam and splashes. Many organisations such as churches and charities produced these rhyming recipe books to raise funds and even those campaigning for women’s suffrage saw the advantage in it.

In Boston, in 1886, Hattie A. Burr produced ‘The Woman’s Suffrage Cook Book’, with contributions from many of the leading women political activists of the time including Elizabeth Cady Stanton who penned a rhyming recipe for breakfast.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (seated) with

Susan B. Anthony circa 1900

'Cut smoothly from a wheaten loaf
Ten slices, good and true,
And brown them nicely, o'er the coals,
As you for toast would do.

Prepare a pint of thickened milk,
Some cod-fish shredded small;
And have on hand six hard-boiled eggs,
Just right to slice withal.

Moisten two pieces of the bread,
And lay them in a dish,
Upon them slice a hard-boiled egg,
Then scatter o'er with fish …'

As for me, I’ve found a recipe in that 1911 cook book for Ballagarry Buck contributed by Mr Filliter and Mr Taylor, it sounds like a rather interesting version of Welsh Rarebit and it thankfully requires no timing at all, so I’m off to try it.

'Murdered Saints and Salmon' by Karen Maitland

Chapel of St Mary, Glastonbury Abbey.

Photo c1865. Cornwell University Library

Today is the feast day of St Indract or St Indracht, who is said to have been martyred in around 700. What I find fascinating about this obscure saint, is not whether he really existed, but the way his story evolved throughout the Middle Ages, which reveals so much about the medieval mind-set.

For peace-loving men, saints attract a lot of trouble and in St Indract’s case it all revolved around food. Early writings about him, draw on an account (now lost) by William of Malmesbury (1095-1143). According to him, Indract was the son of an Irish King, who set off on a pilgrimage to Rome with seven or nine companions. Ireland was suffering a terrible famine and when Indract and his band travelled back through England, they were carrying bags of grain to relieve their people's suffering. They took shelter overnight at Huish Episcopi where a thegn named Horsa who was in the service of Ine, King of the West Saxons (688-726), decided that these royal pilgrims must be carrying gold in their sacks. Horsa and his cutthroats murdered Indract and his companions for this imagined gold, disposing of their corpses in a pit.

But throughout the hours of darkness, great beams of light shone up from the pit revealing the crime to King Ine. He had the corpses reinterred near the high altar of St Mary’s Church in Glastonbury Abbey, where they become the focus of a local cult until the old church was destroyed by fire in 1184. But legend has it that one body was never removed from the pit, and on the night of the 8th May, a light shines up from ground marking its resting place. Later writers give Shapwick as the place where the men were murdered and the bodies concealed.

By 1478, William Worcester claims that the number murdered by Horsa and his men was 100, not merely 10, and that the murderers watching the disinterment of the corpses, were driven into a guilty frenzy and ripped each other to pieces. This reflects the medieval superstition of the period that a murdered victim will reveal their killer if the guilty party is brought into the presence of the corpse or touches the body, when the corpse will bleed afresh or cry out.

The cult surrounding this Celtic saint seems to have mainly been limited to the south west of England and the original legend which William recorded might simply have been a story created to explain an earlier internment of unidentified bodies in the abbey. But it would have brought some welcome income from those who came to venerate the martyrs.

In 14th century, John of Tynemouth, a monk at St Alban’s abbey, recorded the same story of the murder, but with a new legend, which appears to have originated in Cornwall. John has St Indract travelling to Rome with his sister St Dominica, and their companions. But when they reached Temerunta on the banks of the Tamar, they decided to remain for a while. There Indract struck his staff against a rock and well full of salmon sprang up. Then he planted his staff in the ground, where it sprouted into an oak tree to give them shelter. But one of their number stole some salmon in addition to his allotted rations and their fish supply failed. In another version of the legend, the party quarrelled about a fish weir. But both accounts have the group splitting up and St Indract going off to Rome with nine companions.

Medieval Fishing & hunting c.1480

Salmon were vital to the medieval economy and many fish weirs were constructed during the Middle Ages. We know from records there were numerous disputes over ownership and the obstruction caused by these weirs, and cases brought over the rights to take the fish from rivers, so that the idea that a saint was involved in a bitter dispute over salmon, would have seemed entirely feasible to the medieval pilgrims and monks.

But salmon were also important Celtic symbols. Their ability to return the same spawning beds made them symbols of memory and wisdom. The salmon was said to have gained its spots when it ate nine hazelnuts from the nine trees of wisdom, which grew at the heads of the seven major rivers in Ireland and the two holy wells of Connla and Segais. In Irish mythology, it was said that if a man ate the Salmon of Wisdom which had swallowed nine hazelnuts in the sacred well, he would gain all the knowledge of the world. In the celtic tale, the poet Finegas finally caught the salmon after seven years fishing. He ordered his servant, Fionn, to cook it for him and on no account to eat any, but the boy licked his finger burnt by the hot juices from the fish and he gained the wisdom instead.

Atlantic salmon. Timothy Knepp

The oak tree was equally important to medieval life, for it not only provided wood for buildings and ships, but acorns upon which the household pigs could be fattened for free. But it too had sacred links. For both the Norsemen and Celts, groves of sacred oaks were the setting for not only for religious rites, but as places where old enemies would swear binding oaths of peace.

In the Middle Ages, oak leaves were worn as a protection against evil spirits and community meetings were often held beneath oak trees, so that people would be protected from those who might try to curse them, or from witches who would send their familiars in the form of animals to discover what was being discussed. Bede records that when St Augustine wanted to preach in a building on the Isle of Thanet, King Ethelbert of Kent ordered that the meeting be held under an oak tree in case St Augustine and his followers were ‘skilful in sorcery’ and might attempt to deceive and bewitch the king and his men.

Oak leaves and acorns on the choir screen, Lincoln Cathedral

Photo: Poliphilo

It is interesting that the salmon and the oak, which were such important symbols in pre-Christian Celtic mythology, should still be significant enough to be woven into the hagiography of the Christian saint at late as the 14th century. A seamless blending of the pagan and the Christian in the medieval mind, complete with a sacred tree and a holy well.