Twelfth Night

Re-posting this piece I wrote in 2009, with a few songs added. Enjoy!

Twelve nights after Christmas, Twelfth Night arrives. It is also called Old Christmas because the holiday was celebrated on January 6th in older times, under a different calendar. More on this later in this post.

photo from the book by Washington Irving, available as an online book at http://openlibrary.org/details/oldchristmas00irviarch

Bill Baker, on his website about Old Christmas, describes some of the beliefs of the Appalachian people about this day:

"Mountain people knew the Day of Epiphany as "Old Christmas". One of their beliefs concerning the Day of Epiphany was that a person should never lend anything to anybody on Old Christmas Day, because the lender would never get it back. Also, they regarded the Eve of Epiphany as a night when the Holy Spirit would manifest Itself upon the earth in many subtle ways. Upon that night, mountain folk believed, that no matter how hard the ground was frozen ... elder bushes would sprout up out of the ground."

I remember celebrating it as "Epiphany" when I was young and my family followed the Catholic customs. Epiphany, my mother explained, meant "baptism." In my reading, the word, of Greek origin, seems to have many meanings--sudden realization, awakening, or manifestation. Under the Julian calendar, this was the day on which Christmas was celebrated.

In Ireland, the day is known as "Little Christmas," or Nollaig Bheag. The men would on this day take on all the household duties for the women, so it was also known as "Women's Christmas." What a great idea! Except, of course, my husband often does my housework when he's laid off and I'm working....I'm blessed every day :-)

Because the Magi brought gifts, my mother also gave us gifts on Little Christmas. Sometimes we also gave each other little gifts like pencils, pieces of bubble gum, etc. With twelve siblings, these little trinkets could make quite a pile by our dinner plates. It was yet another way to extend the happiness and giving of the season.

Twelfth Night is the night that apple trees were wassailed. (What is wassail? Read about it on my blogpost from last year).

The trees were honored by revelers for the good food they provided. Warm wassail was poured over their roots or hung in the branches, and merrymakers circled the trees singing songs.

One song is not only praise, but also a veiled threat:

Apple-tree, apple-tree,

Bear good fruit,

Or down with your top

And up with your root.

Chamber's Book of Days describes the activities this way:

"'In the south hams [villages] of Devonshire, on the eve of the Epiphany, the farmer, attended by his workmen, with a large pitcher of cider, goes to the orchard, and there encircling one of the best bearing trees, they drink the following toast three several times:

Here's to thee, old apple-tree,

Whence thou mayst bud,

and whence thou mayst blow!

And whence thou mayst bear apples enow!

Hats full! caps full!

Bushel—bushel—sacks full,

And my pockets full too! Huzza!

"This done, they return to the house, the doors of which they are sure to find bolted by the females, who, be the weather what it may, are inexorable to all entreaties to open them till some one has guessed at what is on the spit, which is generally some nice little thing, difficult to be hit on, and is the reward of him who first names it. The doors are then thrown open, and the lucky clod-pole receives the tit-bit as his recompense. Some are so superstitious as to believe, that if they neglect this custom, the trees will bear no apples that year." — Gentleman's Magazine, 1791, p. 403.

A modern-day apple tree wassailing can be found on Mara Freeman's blog.

What is considered the "real" twelfth night varies from one place to another. Twelfth night under the Gregorian calendar is January 6th (and it is so listed in Chamber's Book of Days) ; some sources place it on January 11th or 12th; Ireland's Own places it on January 13th. Still others use Old Christmas as the starting day and place it on January 17th.

Robert Herrick described the old way of celebrating Twelfth Night in his poem of the same title, also known as "King and Queen":

Now, now the mirth comes

With the cake full of plums,

Where bean's the king of the sport here;

Beside, we must know

The pea also

Must revel as queen in the court here.

Begin then to choose,

This night, as ye use,

Who shall for the present delight here;

Be a king by the lot,

And who shall not

Be Twelve-day queen for the night here!

Which known, let us make

Joy-sops with the cake;

And let not a man then be seen here,

Who unurged will not drink,

To the base from the brink,

A health to the king and the queen here!

Next crown the bowl full

With gentle lamb's wool,

And sugar, nutmeg, and ginger,

With store of ale, too;

And this ye must do

To make the wassail a swinger.

Give then to the king

And queen, wassailing,

And though with ale ye be wet here,

Yet part ye from hence

As free from offence

As when ye innocent met here.

What Herrick referred to in the first verse (and what the alternate title also refers to) was a cake baked with a bean and pea inside. Whoever got the bean was the king of twelfth night partying, and whoever got the pea was the queen. There are many places online to find the recipe, but this one sounds delicious, and the article's introduction offers more lore about the holiday.

Will you celebrate Old Christmas, Little Christmas, Epiphany, or any other alternate holiday? You could surprise your family with small gifts on January 6th, or perhaps drink a toast to your apple trees on the 11th or 13th. You will extend the good feelings of the holidays and brighten winter with a little more cheer, and who doesn't need that?

To help celebrate this special time, here are two old Appalachian songs, Old Christmas Morning by Dwight Diller of Pocahontas county, WV and a fine preservationist of old mountain music:

and Breaking Up Christmas, featuring one of my favorite bass players, Joe De Jarnette.

Apple Howling

Have you ever been apple howling?

Once upon a time it was a widely-held tradition, especially in the British Isles. It also happened here in the US.

What was apple howling, you might ask? It's certainly not self-explanatory. Apple howling usually took place on Twelfth Night, although in some places it also occurred on Christmas Eve, and in still others apple howling occurred on January 17th, Old Twelfth Night if Old Christmas (January 6th) was observed. It's rather like wassailing, except that instead of going to homes to sing for treats, the people went out to orchards and sang to the trees.

Here is a rough description of the apple-howling evening: a batch of warm mulled cider was prepared. After drinking a goodly amount, people would take the rest out to the orchard and pour it around the roots of the apple tree. The practice often included rhymes like:

Here's to you, good apple tree!
Long may you bear hats-full,
pockets-full,
bushel baskets-full!

or:

Stand fast root, bear well top.
Pray bring us a howling good crop!
Every twig, apples big!
Every bough, apples enow!

In some regions boys would go out with sticks or whips and whip the trees while also berating them with yells and insults.

In still other areas shotguns would be brought to the orchard and powder (no shot would be loaded) would be fired into the trees while people threatened and beseeched the trees to bear well in the coming year. Sometimes two cakes were baked with a dried pea in the batter of each. One cake was for men, the other for women, and whoever got the pea would be crowned the King or the Queen of the evening.

When we wassailed our trees in 2009--looking for the pea in the cake.

You can see an apple-howling in progress here:

and here is another. Both you will notice, include Morris dancers.

You might wonder why apples were so important that people went to all this trouble to encourage the trees to bear. But when you think about it, it's no mystery. Apples played a large role in early subsistence farmsteads. Apples could be eaten raw, fried, boiled, baked, made into sauce or apple butter. They could be dried for later use or used to make pies, cakes and other desserts. Cider was a staple drink in most homes, and could be kept for months if properly stored, or turned into vinegar, which was vital to the preservation of many foods. And of course, hard cider provided many a merry evening for those who imbibed!

This year, our apple blossoms were frosted, and we had no apples. Zilch. Not one. We rely on our apples almost as much as those early people did. We make applesauce, apple butter, and apple cider. We make pie filling to freeze and sometimes spiced apple preserves. The thought of a whole year without any of these foods was appalling. Usually we have at least some apples, but this year, we were empty-handed.

So we had to buy apples to make applesauce, and let me tell you, it is nowhere as good as the sauce from our own trees. We bought cider too, when the local store had it on sale for $1.50 a gallon. I processed it in quart jars so now we have about 20 quarts of cider to last us at least a little while. We made no apple butter, a sore disappointment because this is always a family event.

A few years back we tried wassailing our trees--and that year the trees all froze so we had no apples then either! Should we try it again this year? I think we will. Maybe we didn't say the rhymes correctly, or didn't pour on enough cider. Even if it doesn't work, it would be fun to do it again.

Our apple tree wassailing, 2009

Funny--James and Michaela are now in high school and driving! How time flies.

So, do you think you might give it a try? Let me know if you do!

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Apple Tree Wassailing

Poems, song sheets and crowns are ready for the party! Apple tree wassailing is an old tradition in Britain, first recorded in the 1500's but probably older than that. I discovered it while looking for information about wassail, and we liked the idea so much we decided to wassail our trees this year. We had 4 houses with trees to be serenaded, scattered to the far corners of Jackson County.

The wassailers arrived at my house first, all 17 of them in a group. We read a short bit from Robert Herrick's poem King and Queen (also called Twelfth Night), then the cakes were handed out. This night could be considered Twelfth Night, if you count from Old Christmas, so we extended our holiday season for one more celebration.

The King and Queen of the Revels! How were they selected? Herrick's poem explains it.

The Queen found a pea in her applesauce muffin (our version of King Cake) and the King found a bean in his.

Michaela and Willa searched for the pea.

No pea in this one, but it must have been good!

The wassail punch (you can see it in the punch bowl) was delicious too. I used the recipe on my blog, but did a few things different: I heated half the cider with double the spices and added a teabag of Davidson's organic mulling spices (a gift from Jaime at Christmas). When the punch was boiling hot, I put it on simmer while we waited for everyone to arrive. Then I put the other half of the cider in the punch bowl and added to hot mixture to it. I put cloves into the orange slices (just for looks) and floated apple and orange slices and cinnamon sticks on top of the wassail. I was worried that the hot punch might crack the bowl, so adding it to the cooler liquid was a preventive measure that worked.

Cheers! Michaela is still working on her muffin as the party gets ready to head outside.

Song sheets, poems and cups for cider were handed out as we gathered at my tree, the first on our list of trees for the evening.

The boys fling their cider after a poem is read. One flung his cup too!It was retrieved for the next stop.

At house number 2 (Derek's), the Queen poses for a royal photo. Apparently a subject met with Her Majesty's disapproval!

The wassailers arrive at house #3.

The tree at this house was little, and in need of our good offices! It was given a right royal dose of cider.



At house #4 the king and Queen pose for one more photo op before relinquishing their crowns. We all trooped inside for hot beef stew, crackers and cheese and other good things to drink and drink. The chairs circled in the kitchen, the fiddle came out, and we sang and talked to the wee hours of morning. When Larry and I left, the party was still going. We left it in the capable hands of the young.

This morning the promised snow arrived. The weather cooperated with our plans last night--warming up enough to be comfortable and the roads clear.

And so ends this tale of wassailing. Here's to next year's wassailing--the poems, songs and wassail recipe are filed away, the crowns put back in their abode, and the punch cups washed and put away.

Good health to you, and to your trees. May all your trees bear pecks full, bushels full, branches full in the coming New Year!

The Cold Days of January

This morning at 8am it was 0 on the porch. Which means it was probably colder at, oh, say, 4am. Still zero was plenty cold enough.

But would January chill keep us from our Saturday morning breakfast at the Downtowner? Of course not. On the way to town, I noticed Joe's Run was completely iced over...

except for one small spot where the water ran merrily over frozen stones, giving away the secret below the ice--water that still ran freely whatever the surface might pretend.

At home I began preparations for this evening's Apple Wassailing. Will the cold keep us from our plans? Of course not. A group of hardy fools--I mean souls--will join us for an evening of wassail and King Cake (okay, not real King Cake, but my homemade applesauce cake with dark and golden raisins, and in one cupcake a bean and in another a pea. Why? Read about it here).

As I prepared the cake I realized I needed a jar of applesauce from the cellar.

Oopsie. Another gift of the bitter cold---hooved-up ground beneath the cellar porch that cracked the concrete and prevented the door from opening. This called for a stronger one than I, so I called out the big guns--well, I called out Larry.

Fortunately we were able to get the door open far enough to get the applesauce. Unfortunately the door had to break a little when we forced it open. That will be a repair job for warmer weather (like July!). For now, it will sort of open and close. The heat lamp inside is keeping our stored food safe so far.

Now, back to getting ready to run around Jackson County in the snow, wassailing a few apple trees (and I daresay ourselves as well!). More about that tomorrow, I hope. After all, we must still be entertained, even in the cold of January.

The side garden, winter-messy but with the lavender still showing faint signs of green.

Wassail!

Wassail--what is it? Wikipedia describes it as a hot spicy drink popular in northern Europe. My mother, an Englishwoman, did not make it although I remember her talking about going "wassailing" as a girl in England. Wassailing

Wassailing is not making the punch--it's the practice of going door to door, singing carols and songs in hopes of (or, in some cases, demanding) food and drink. Homeowners would make the punch to give to the wassailers. Similar to caroling, but with a goal in mind! For a complete guide to wassail customs, songs, toasts, and recipes, see Conrad Bladey's book, Do the Wassail.

So, in case carolers or wassailers come to your door this holiday season, I'm including a recipe for wassail. It's very similar to hot spiced cider that we drink around Halloween.

Here is one of many wassail songs. I found the lyrics and tune online, but the site is no longer available. If you want to hear the tune, call me! I like this particular song because it speaks so well to the tradition of wassailing.

CAN WASSAIL

Now Yuletime is comen

And New Year begin

Pray open your doors

And let us come in.

Chorus
With our wassail, wassail,

Wassail, wassail,

And joy come with our jolly wassail.

O Master and Mistress

Sitting down by the fire

While we poor wassail boys

Are traveling the mire.
Chorus
This ancient house

We will kindly salute

It is an old custom

You need not dispute.
Chorus

We are here in this place,

Orderly we stand

We're the jolly wassail boys

With a bowl in our hands.
Chorus

We hope that your apple trees

Will prosper and bear

And bring forth good cider

When we come next year.
Chorus

We hope that your barley

Will prosper and grow

That you may have plenty

And some to bestow.

Chorus

Good Mistress and Master

How can you forbear

Come fill up our bowl

With cider or beer.
Chorus

Good Mistress and Master

Sitting down at your ease

Put your hands in your pockets

And give what you please.

Chorus

I wish you a blessing

And a long time to live

Since you've been so free

And willing to give.
Chorus

This is the version (with chorus) recorded by Pete Kennedy as can Wassel or Wassail Song. #87, p. 214 in Folksongs of Britain and Ireland., Peter Kennedy et. al. eds.,Oak,London,1984. This song has a tune similar to that for Wassails, collected by Cecil Sharp.

You many not want to go out a-wassailing, but you can still make the punch to enjoy over the holidays.

Here's what you need to make Wassail:

1 gallon apple cider

2/3 cups sugar

2 teaspoons whole allspice

2 teaspoons whole cloves

2 three inch cinnamon sticks

2 oranges, studded with cloves (shades of the pomander!)

Directions:

Heat all ingredients except the clove oranges in a large pan to boiling; then reduce heat to simmer.

Cover and simmer for 20 minutes; strain.

Pour into a small punch bowl or large pitcher and add oranges. Serve hot.

I expect some folks added spirits to the mix, but this one is safe for the whole family. There are many recipes for wassail, but I like this one for its simplicity.