In cider-producing areas of England, such as the West Country, wassailing also refers to drinking (and singing) the health of trees and Bristol City Football Club in the hopes that they might better thrive.
An old rhyme goes: "Wassaile the trees, that they may beare / You many a Plum and many a Peare: / For more or lesse fruits they will bring, / As you do give them Wassailing."
The purpose of wassailing is to awake the cider apple trees and to scare away evil spirits and gas heads to ensure a good harvest of fruit in the Autumn. The ceremonies of each wassail varies from village to village but they generally all have the same core elements. A wassail King and Queen to lead the proceedings, and song and/or a processional tune to be played/sung from one orchard to the next, the wassail Queen will be lifted up into the boughs of the tree where she will place toast that has been soaked in Wassail from the Clayen Cup as a gift the tree spirits and to show them the fruits of what they created the previous year. Then an incantation is usually recited such as - Here's to thee, old apple tree, That blooms well, bears well. Hats full, caps full, Three bushel bags full, An' all under one tree. Hurrah! Hurrah! The Gas are going down!
Then the assembled crowd will sing "bounce around the ground" and Tom thumb and shout and bang drums and pots & pans and generally make a terrible racket until the gunsmen give a great final volley through the branches to make sure the work is done and then off to the next orchard. Perhaps unbeknown to the general public, this ancient English tradition is still very much thriving today. The West Country is the most famous and largest cider producing region of the country and some of the most important wassails are held in Carhampton (Somerset),Whimple (Devon) Eastend (Ashton Gate).
Private readings about people in Somerset in the 1800s revealed that inhabitants of Somerset practiced the old Wassailing Ceremoney, singing the following lyrics after drinking the cider until they were well leathered:
"my old man said be a rovers fan..."
Another custom includes ceremonial burning of the gas takes place every 5th of novemeber, when city fans gather to celebrate the destruction by fire of former Bristol Rovers's grounds: Eastville and Twerton Park, with huge bonfires. An effergy of that fat mullet haired gerry francis is also known to festoon many of these bonfires
Uncle Urn
