SC - Re: WASSAIL--Is There Documentation?

[Philip & Susan Troy]

LHG,JRG wrote:
> 
> Thought the list would enjoy this discussion from rec.org.sca.

Thanks! I haven't checked the Rialto in quite a while; all it seems to
be is people arguing with Bryan J. Maloney and/or Dennis O'Connor. What
you have forwarded is pretty much the same as what I found out, which
appears to be much speculation and little hard data. 

> >>Here we come a-wassailing
> >>amongst the leaves so green......
> >
> >Martin Shaw, in the _Oxford Book of Carols,_ give early-to-mid-
> >nineteenth-century sources for two versions of this song, indicates
> >that one of them "seems to have copied it from source of the
> >reign of James I or Charles I," and speculates that it may be as
> >old as the Elizabethan period.

The song you referenced is still sung, with a slight change in lyric, in
Catholic churches around Christmas; it occurred to me that if the tune
that is generally associated with the lyrics you give were written in
the nineteenth century, a book of hymns and carols might be able to help
pin down the date.

> >
> >Drinks for cold weather made of gently heated ale with stuff in
> >it (oatmeal, roasted apples, whatever) seem to be fairly old.
> >Dorothy Hartley, in _Food in England,_ quotes Shakespeare:
> >
> >       Sometimes lurk I in the gossip's bowl,
> >       In very likeness of a roasted crab,         [meaning, crabapple]
> >       And when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
> >       And down her wrinkled dewlap pours the ale.

Thank you, Puck-Robin! Bickerdyke claims that the later habit of using
only the pulp of roasted apples (as opposed to whole apples, crab or
otherwise) appears to be a later custom (maybe 18th century?) developed
by students in the University towns. The standard name for the white
foamy pulp floating on top of the spiced ale punch is Lamb's Wool, which
has come to refer to the drink itself. 
> >
> >But the recipe she gives is from 1722 and involves twice-fermented
> >ale served at room temperature with hot roasted apples floating
> >in it.

Same problem with Bickerdyke. He gives several recipes for various
wassail-specific drinks, but doesn't document them beyond saying that it
is the tradition of Rattlebum College, Oxford. (I hate Victorian
scholarship...them and their bloody bronze rapiers!)

To some extent, though, I agree with Lord Ras, who said that there are
enough spiced wine  or ale recipes from period sources to suspect that
they are possibly what was drunk from a wassail bowl. Personally, I'd
also be inclined to look at some of the posset recipes, which have been
known to include a thickening of either grain of some sort, like oats
(but no leeks, Aoife!) and I could swear I've seen later ones with bread
crumbs and/or sops. The traditional folk recipes as used at Sodall
College often seem to feature toasts floating on the top, which could
make it a descendant of posset. Possets, BTW, are one of those hot,
strengthening drinks favored by those who, for one reason or another,
can't eat, either because thay are too busy, or because they are
supposed to be fasting (Hey, I'm not eating, I'm drinking, Archdeacon!).
You know. Carnation Instant Breakfast with a little alcoholic kick to
it. Not much, though, because some or all of it has been heated. Anyway,
just the thing for folks walking around in the cold, doing the wassail
thing.

Now, one point that hasn't been addressed yet, that might prove
significant, is the word wassail itself. I don't have the information
here in front of me, but IIRC, it is a Middle English word, derived from
either Old Norse or Anglo-Saxon expressions, both very similar to each
other, meaning "be hale", or "be whole" (more or less the same thing for
practical purposes). Seems a reasonable toast to drink at either Yule or
the New Year. I'm inclined to suspect that the custom might predate the
Christianization of Northern England. Also seems like just the thing
that the clergy at Anglo-Norman courts (quite possibly the scribes
behind, say, The Forme of Cury) might want to discourage, doubtless for
the best of reasons ;  )

Adamantius   
______________________________________
Phil & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com
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