SC - Re: WASSAIL--Is There Documentation?

[LHG,JRG]

More Rialto Posts on Wassail

nachtanz at patriot.net (Susan and Ken Reed) wrote:
>In article <3460f2c0.1268932 at news.goodnet.com>, dell at goodnet.com wrote:
>
>[snip]
> 
>> The oldest reference I have to the custom is in "Daily Living in the
>> Twelfth Century" by Urban Tigner Holmes, jr.  He says that it was a
>> silly custom of the English.  One drinker would pick up a vessel of
>> wine, "salute his companion with a kiss, and cry "Wassail!"  The other
>> bestowed a kiss in turn and cried "Drink-hail!"  They both drank. . .
>> .  The people on the Continent observed this practice with awe and
>> amusement, and were disposed to consider the English to be drunkards
>> because of it."  His footnotes refer to John of Salisbury, to Gaimar
>> in "Estorie des Engleis", to "Brut", and to Giraldus (who describes a
>> Cluniac version of the procedure).
>> 
>[snip again]
>> -- della
>> ~fredella fiammetta lodovico di alamanni~
>
>In _History of the Kings of Britain_ (Ca 1139), Geoffrey of Monmouth
>associates the beginning of the custom described above to the meeting of
>Vortigern and Hengist's daughter, Ronwen in Book VI, section 12 in the
>Sebastian Evans translation. However fanciful his story might be, the
>custom was known by the 12th century.
>
>Teleri Talgellawg
>
>-- 
>Susan and Ken Reed     AFPOPA     nachtanz at patriot.net
>RK Architects, 900 S. Washington St., Falls Church, VA
>http://www.patriot.net/users/nachtanz



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