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Gloucestershire Wassail

[ Roud 209 ; Ballad Index RcGlWasS ; VWML CJS2/9/1214 , CJS2/9/2011 , RVW2/1/162 ; GlosTrad Roud 209 ; DT WASGLOUC ; trad.]

Gwylim Davies: Catch It, Bottle It, Paint It Green
Roy Palmer: Folk Songs Collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams

Dick Parsons sang The Waysailing Bowl at the Cheese Rollers pub, Cheltenham, Glooucestershire on 28 July 1974, and Billy Buckingham sang The Waysailing Bowl in Stonehouse, Glouchestershire on 13 February 1999. Both were recorded by Gwilym Davies, and the recordings were published in 2020 on the Musical Traditions anthology of songs from the Gwilym Davies collection, Catch It, Bottle It, Paint It Green that was issued to accompany Davies’ book of the same name. He noted:

The Gloucestershire wassailing tradition was kept up at least to the start of World War II. Dick Parsons’ version, with its unusual tune, was sung by him and his companions around the southern districts of Cheltenham until the 30s. They carried with them a bowl in which they collected drink as they moved from house to house. Verses 1 and 2 were recorded and the remainder were dictated off microphone.

Billy learnt this splendid version of the Gloucestershire wassail as a lad in the Stroud area and used to earn money (and cider!) by singing it around the big houses and farms at Christmas time in the area south of Stroud, down to Woodchester. They did not have a bowl to take, and so they decorated up a chamber pot. They wore women’s clothes and blacked their faces. He was still singing the song 60 years later in the pubs of Stonehouse.

Billy Buckingham and others also sang The Wassailing Bowl earlier in The Royal Arms, Stonehouse, Gloucestershire in February 1979. This recording made by Gwilym Davies was included in 1998 on the Topic anthology of songs and dance tunes of seasonal events, You Lazy Lot of Bone-Shakers (The Voice on the People Volume 16).

Nowell Sing We Clear sang The Gloucestershire Wassail in 1981 on their album The Second Nowell. This track was also included in 1989 on The Best of Nowell Sing We Clear 1975-1986.

Ian Woods and Charley Yarwood sang the Gloucestershire Wassail in 1984 on their Traditional Sound album Hooks & Nets. This track was also included in 2002 on the Fellside anthology of the calendar in traditional song, Seasons, Ceremonies & Rituals. Ian Woods noted:

I first learnt this when I was at primary school and have since used it when teaching. It is a very basic version of the ‘wassail’ family, other examples of which can be found in the Oxford Book of Carols.

Maddy Prior and The Carnival Band recorded Wassail! several times: on their CDs Carols and Capers (1991) and Carols at Christmas (1998), and on the DVD An Evening of Carols and Capers (2005).

The York Waits sang The Gloucestershire Wassail in 1992 on their Saydisc album Old Christmas Return’d. They noted:

Many items [in this Christmas collection], for example Drive the Cold Winter Away, The Old Year Now Away Is Fled, The Gloucestershire Wassail have pagan or secular origins, and are more concerned with the Twelve Days holiday and the welcome to the New Year. This was traditionally the main holiday of the year when most agricultural activities were dormant, and a time for masques, revels and general merriment.

Andy Turner learned Gloucestershire Wassail from the Oxford Book of Carols. He recorded it with Magpie Lane—with a different singer leading each verse—on their 1995 country Christmas album Wassail!, and he sang it as the 28 December 2017 entry of his project A Folk Song a Week. The CD notes commented:

A very widespread country carol which exists in 19^th-century printed versions. A wassail was a toast reserved for festive occasions, and sung especially at Christmas when wassailers would go from house to house singing for beer, punch or cider.

The Albion Christmas Band sang Gloucester Wassail in 2003 on their CD An Albion Christmas and again in 2009 on Traditional.

Coope Boyes & Simpson, Fi Fraser, Jo Freya and Georgina Boyes sang Gloucestershire Wassail in 2003 on their CD Fire and Sleet and Candlelight. They noted:

Several different midwinter customs are known as “Wassailing”. Across the North, Wassailing involved showing a doll in a leaf-decorated box and singing carols in exchange for gifts. In the South and into the Midlands, fruit trees are still visited and Wassailed with songs, food and drink to encourage them to grow. This Wassail Song however, was part of the West of England custom in which groups of young people would carry a large decorated bowl from place to place, offering a drink from it in exchange for other drinks and food. Their song toasts all the members of the household and their animals—including the cows Broad Mary and Fillpail. Ralph Vaughan Williams records that the Gloucestershire Wassail tune was sung to him “by an old person in the county” [VWML CJS2/9/1214] , but also makes reference to a variant he collected from William Bayliss at Buckland [VWML CJS2/9/2011, RoudFS/S164625] and acknowledges verses from a version Cecil Sharp collected from Isaac Bennett at Little Sodbury [VWML CJS2/9/1214] .

[The sisters] Fi [Fraser] and Jo [Freya] probably learnt the song when they used to go out singing around the Cotswolds on Boxing Day with the Gloucestershire Old Spot Morris Dancers and The Songwainers.

Ian Giles, John Spiers, Jon Boden and Giles Lewin sang Wassail, Wassail in 2006 on the Gift of Music CD An English Folk Christmas.

John Kirkpatrick sang The Wassailing Bowl in 2011 on his Fledg’ling album God Speed the Plough. He noted:

The middle of winter offers plenty of opportunity for ancient superstitions to bubble to the surface, and numerous traces of old magic can be found in country practices at this time of year. “Wassail” is an Anglo-Saxon term meaning ”Good Health”, and is a word associated with all kinds of activities undertaken to bring good luck to the land and all those who live on it. Versions of this particular song have been noted in Gloucestershire and Herefordshire, and entail the Wassailers going round the farmyard animals and singing them a verse each to make sure they prosper and thrive in the year ahead, not just for the benefit of their master, in the words of the song, but consequently for the good of their own bellies as well.

The tune here is more or less that sung by Madge Stevens, of Bisley in Gloucestershire, who had a more definite pause on the first syllable of “wassail”, which she pronounced more like “waysail”. Gwilym and Carol Davies recorded her singing it in 1977, and included her performance on their collection of Gloucestershire field recordings called All Brought Up on Cider, issued as a Folktrax cassette in 1987. There is also a transcription in Let Us Be Merry, a book of Gloucestershire Christmas Songs edited by Gwilym Davies and Roy Palmer in 1996. Both sources also contain other very similar versions of the song, and I have raided both these and yet others to compile this set of words.

Martyn Wyndham-Read, Dick Streeter and Sue Mills sang the Gloucester Wassail in 2012 on the album The Seasons of the Year (Maypoles to Mistletoe 2).

There are as many versions of this song as there are apples on a branch and with the full West Country flavour and taste of the cider. Wassail, Wassail be of good cheer.

Finest Kind sang Jolly Wassail on their 2018 Christmas album I Am Christmas. They noted:

Jolly Wassail is a folk-processed version of The Gloucestershire Wassail.

Nick Hart talked with Jon Wilks about The Gloucestershire Wassail / The Wassailing Song in December 2022 in Series 2, Episode 7 of Jon Wilks’ Old Songs Podcast.

Cooper & Toller sang The Minchinhampton Wassail as a round on their 2024 album Year’s End. They noted:

The glostrad.com website is a fine resource for those interested in the traditional songs and tunes of Gloucestershire. It was there that we found this song, one of many versions of the Gloucestershire Wassail. The tune was noted by James Madison Carpenter from Thomas Tranter and William Evans in Minchinhampton, and the words from George Herbert of Avening some time between 1927 and 1935. In Gloucestershire, the wassail was of the travelling variety, rather than the dousing-apple-trees-with-cider variety. The practice involved a group of people visiting houses singing the wassail song and collecting money, sometimes accompanied by accordion or concertina. According to the booklet I remember—Social Life in Gloucestershire Villages 1850-1950, “the wassailers of Minchinhampton carried a large bowl decorated with evergreens, among which were some small dolls. During the year, the bowl was kept by one man known as the king of the wassailers. There used to be twenty or so of these wassailers; later they dwindled to three or four and it was looked on as ‘rather low and rough’.” The song’s verse order might vary; a particular verse might be prompted by a member of the group shouting out a key word or phrase. The Broad was a south Gloucestershire variant of the hobby horse carried by one of the wassailers. The Broad’s head represents a Bull, often made from a flat white wooden board with horns and red glass eyes attached. The head was held aloft on a broomstick by a carrier whose body was covered in sacking. When the door of the visited house was opened the Broad’s head would be thrust in first with a loud roaring noise to summon and/or terrify the inhabitants.

Jackie Oates and John Spiers sang Gloucestershire Wassail on their 2024 album A Midwinter’s Night. They noted:

This song relates to a wassailing tradition from the West of England, in which groups of young people would carry a large decorated bowl between houses, offering a drink from it in exchange for food and drink.

Lyrics

Gloucestershire Wassail in The New Oxford Book of Carols

Wassail, wassail all over the town!
Our toast it is white and our ale it is brown;
Our bowl it is made of the white maple tree;
With the wassailing-bowl we’ll drink to thee!

So here is to Cherry and to his right cheek!
Pray God send our master a good piece of beef,
And a good piece of beef that we all may see;
With the wassailing-bowl we’ll drink to thee!

And here is to Dobbin and to his right eye!
Pray God send our master a good Christmas pie,
And a good Christmas pie that we may all see;
With our wassailing-bowl we’ll drink to thee!

So here is to Broad May and to her broad horn!
May God send our master a good crop of corn,
And a good crop of cron that we may all see;
With the wassailing-bowl we’ll drink to thee!

And here is to Fillpail and to her left ear!
Pray God send our master a happy new year,
And a happy new year as e’er he did see;
With our wassailing-bowl we’ll drink to thee!

And here is to Colly and to her long tail!
Pray God send our master he never may fail.
A bowl of strong beer; I pray you draw near,
And our jolly wassail it’s then you shall hear.

Come, butler, come fill us a bowl of the best,
Then we hope that your soul in heaven may rest;
But if you do draw us a bowl of the small,
Then down shall go butler, bowl and all!

Then here’s to the maid in the lily-white smock
Who tripped to the door and slipped back the lock;
Who tripped to the door and pulled back the pin,
For to let these jolly wassailers in.

Dick Parsons sings The Waysailing Bowl

Come butler, come butler, fill us a bowl of the best,
Hoping your soul in heaven may rest.
In heaven may rest where we shall all be.
To my waysailing bowl, we’ll drink unto thee.

But if he should fill us a bowl of the small
Down will go butler, and bowl and all
Down he shall go to the bottom of the sea
To my waysailing bowl, we will drink unto thee.

Here we come a-wass’ling all over the town,
Our cup it is white and our ale it is brown.
Our bowl it is made of the sycamore tree
To my waysailing bowl I’ll drink unto thee.

Here’s to the (h)ox and to his right horn
God send my master a good crop of corn.
A good crop of corn that we may all taste
To my waysailing bowl, don’t drink it in haste.

Here’s to the (h)ox and to his right ear,
God send my master a barrel of beer.
A barrel of beer that we may all taste
To my waysailing bowl, don’t drink it in haste.

Here’s to the (h)ox and to his right eye
God send my master a good Christmas pie
A good Christmas pie that we may all taste
To my waysailing bowl, don’t drink it in haste.

Here’s to the (h)ox and to his right leg
Wishing my master a barrel of keg.
A barrel of beer that we may all taste
To my waysailing bowl, don’t drink it in haste.

Billy Buckingham sings The Waysailing Bowl

Waysail, waysail, all over the town,
Our bread it is white and our ale it is brown.
And our bowl it is made of the best mottling tree,
To the waysailing bowl I’ll bring unto thee.

Now here’s a health to our master and to his right eye,
Pray God send our master a good Xmas [sic] pie,
And a good Xmas pie that we may all see
To me waysailing bowl I’ll bring unto thee.
To me waysailing bowl I’ll bring unto thee.

Now here’s a health to our master and to his right ear
Pray God send our master a happy New Year.
And an happy New Year that we may all see
To me waysailing bowl I’ll bring unto thee.

Now here’s a health to my master and to his right arm,
Pray God send our master a good crop of corn,
And a good crop of corn and another of hay
To pass the cold wintery wyunds away.

Now here’s a health to my master and to his right hip,
Pray God send our master a good flock of ship.
And a good flock of ship that we may all see,
To me waysailing bowl I’ll bring unto thee.

Now here’s a health to my master and to his right leg,
Pray God send our master a good fatted pig.
And a good fatted pig that we may all see
To me waysailing bowl I’ll bring unto thee.

Now butler come fill us a bowl of your best
I hope that in heaven your soul will rest
But if you should bring us a bowl of your small
Then down shall go butler, bowl and all.

There was an old woman she had but one cow
And how to maintain it she did not know how
She built up a barn to keep her cow warm
And a drop of your cider will do us no harm.

Maddy Prior sings Wassail!

A wassail, a wassail all over the town
Our cup is white and our ale is brown
Our cup is made of the white maple tree
With a wassailing bowl we’ll drink to thee.
Drink to thee, drink to thee,
With a wassailing bowl we’ll drink to thee.

O master and mistress, oh are you within?
Pray open the door-knob and let us come in.
O master and mistress sitting down by the fire,
O won’t you see us wassailers a-travelling in the mire.
Travelling in the mire, travelling in the mire,
O won’t you see us wassailers a-travelling in the mire.

There was an old man and he had an old cow,
And how for to keep her he didn’t know how,
He built up a barn for to keep his cow warm,
And a drop of strong beer will do us no harm.
Do us no harm, do us no harm,
And a drop of strong beer will do us no harm.

So here’s to the maid in the lily-white smock,
Who tripped to the door and pulled back the lock.
Who tripped to the door and pulled back on the pin,
For to let these jolly wassailers in.
Wassailers in, wassailers in,
For to let these jolly wassailers in.

(repeat first verse)

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Mark Ellison