[Old twelfth night, the 16th of January, is when my wife, writer and artist Lunar Hine, and I decided to Wassail our apple trees, as goes the tradition.
After gathering in the house and playing music and drinking mulled cider (and eating yummy Dorset Apple cake made by artist Rima, and my own dried apples) we headed off into the garden to Wassail the apple trees.
The first - the oldest in my garden, though I only planted it last year, was my daughters discovery apple. We drank mulled cider from a wooden bowl and splashed some on the roots.
The youngest child to hand, the son of jeweler Jason of England, hung bread in the branches soaked in cider. We all cheered and tried to make lots of noise. Unfortunately none of us had brought anything really noisy like a pan, so we had to make do with maracas and bells!
Someone gently gave the tree a sake to wake it for the next year.
I said
"Wassail the tree, soes it may bear,
many an apple and many a pair,
soes it may grow, and it may bow,
and it may bring us apples eno'
Huzzar!"
This I had learned off the local Somerset Radio about 10 years ago from an old cider maker.
We then went on to another three orchards, though these where more developed.
One our friends planned to wassail again as they normally did, at the end of the month - so we chose a stunted tree that had produced a good crop for the first time in its life. After all "Wassail" (Saxon for "good health") is really a thank you to the trees (some would have it as the gods of the orchard - or in one case with us "the Pipins" - faeries from Rupert the Bear who lived in apple trees!).
With the other two orchards however it was the oldest and best trees that we chose.]
Already looking forward to next year :o).
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