Re: hey........

[Leigh.Perkins@sset.com]

     Hi
     
     Wassailing is an old english tradition like morris men, the hobby 
     horse and the may pole.  It's history was actually buried by the 
     christians along with the white witches (it was the christians who 
     labelled witches as toothless crones with pointed hats).
     
     Wassailing was the tradition of going out to the orchards and praying 
     to the apple trees to provide good fruit (presumably to make some 
     decent cider!!).  T.C. - you are right that it was a pagan customer, 
     though it's more likely that it would be done in the spring or early 
     summer (solstice).  I can't think how it got into Christmas Carols - 
     perhaps they wassailed for thanks at the end ot the Autumn as well - 
     can anyone else chip in??
     
     Another deep traditional English line from Lionheart "I fall from my 
     black Spitfire to my funeral barge".  Trip to the Isle of Avalon 
     anyone?????
     
     Leigh
     
     


______________________________ Forward Header __________________________________
Subject: Re: hey........
Author:  love-hounds@gryphon.com at INTERNET
Date:    7/7/97 2:02 PM


Alan Chamberlin quoth:
     
> Think back to one of those perennial Christmas carols:  "Here we go
> a-wassailing . . .".  Wassailing is going out and singing Christmas carols 
> in public.  In the U.S. we just don't use the word "wassailing."
     
There's more to wassailing than singing Christmas carols. Wassail is 
a toast to good health (esp. to livestock and nature). It implies 
carousing and drunken revelry. It has come to be associated with 
Christmas (or more accurately Twelfth Night and/or Twelftide) and 
Christianity, but I'll bet it was originally a pagan custom.
     
T.C.Richards
mailto:tcr@nbnet.nb.ca
Read 'The idea of demonic seduction in Keats and Zappa,' 
at http://www.music-planet.com/zappa/fztext/fzessay.html