Ancient Tradition of Singing to Trees // Wassail Documentary
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- čas přidán 28. 08. 2024
- The Anglo-Saxons left a pagan Winter tradition in Western England where people sing to the apple trees to encourage a good harvest, and this is called Wassailing. Wassail comes from Old English "wes hal" meaning "be healthy". There are many well attested records of the tradition of “wassailing the apple trees” from the 16th century onwards - but this practice is generally agreed to be far older. Each village has its own customs, but singing to the trees, offering them toast and making noise are common to all.
In this video I visit two small villages in Devon to demonstrate the Wassailing tradition. It includes firing guns into the air, hanging toast in the tree branches, electing a Wassail King or queen to lead the procession, a mummers play of an axeman who attacks the trees, lots of cider drinking and lots of singing too! Thanks to Sandford orchard and all the people who participated in the two events.
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Im a working class lad from north east england ive been watching your videos for months now thank you for bringing me in touch with our tradition and our ways. I would of never of known this and i appreciate your work.
COBALTJACK33 well said! Thanks to Tom for bringing me in touch with my heritage too.
My dad is from Lincoln and landed in Vancouver Canada. He grew up post war in the fields of marem Le fen. He talks of some things but survive the jive is keeping it alive! Thank you! ♥️🇨🇦♥️
You're doing very important work documenting these traditions, Tom. Hail!
I can’t begin to tell how much this video warmed my heart! Native English reclaiming their old traditions, and such an organic tradition bound in the soil. Wonderful to see old and young participating. A wee bit of antidote to the usual glum news cycle. Let the young get a sense of the spirit of the land and a connection to their forebears and they will have something worth fighting for.
I love that you're covering surviving local traditions (like the burning barrels). These are really important, practical traditions that we can maintain today. It's not just something you read about in textbooks and that's wonderful.
It makes me sad to know that the world held traditions like these and that so many people have forgot where they've come from and left these things behind. This is representative of what's truly important in life. Tradition, community, gratitude and appreciation for the very essence of life.
Hello from the United States. I am a Black American of Cuban origin that celebrates my English and German ancestry. I want to see the continuation of European heritage and traditions for my family to enjoy and pass down. I understand the hard work and effort for Northern Europeans to find history on the distant past just as it is with most Black Americans. I thank this channel for helping me and others connect with European traditions.
No offense or anything, but shouldn’t you be celebrating your black African roots more than your European roots?
Or your Spanish roots for that matter, considering that you’re Cuban…
Yes, that is how I feel, as a Western European (English specifically), sad and resentful that Christian missionaries from the Middle East and Rome came and convinced our leaders to suppress, destroy, neuter and hijack the Old Ways, scaring our ancestors with the threat of hell and eventually the threat of violence or imprisonment, into adopting Christianity. How tragic that powerful descendents of those Western European converts later did the same thing to other cultures in Africa and the Americas, with a variety of terrible methods.
Like a virus, once you become infected (by any religion that demands that you convert as many people as possible to save them from hell) you sometimes infect others. This contagious cultural destruction spread across the globe like wildfire, driven by the cruel fear of hellfire that it instills in its victims.
Speaking for my own country and certainly some others, modern Yule time here, or Christmas, is a beautiful mashup of many different cultural influences over the years, including Christian influences. However, I prefer to call it Yule, because calling it Christmas reinforces the beliefs of those who STILL want to shame everyone else into seeing the festivities as exclusively Christian, with embarrassingly ignorant "put the Christ back in Christmas" and "Jesus is the reason for the season" propaganda.
@@compulsiverambler1352 Well, I understand what you’re feeling, and while I understand your sentiment, at the end of the day, I really hope that this proves to you that religion, for the most part is kind of bullshit, because which religion is true your religion, their religion, somebody else’s religion? Who apparently has a truth here who who who is the truth point to somebody or some religion that apparently speaks absolute truth? And if you can’t do that, then that literally proves my point…
@@djprincegrandmasteryrjdalo2905who is to say they don’t? We are all made of many.
Wassailing is alive and kicking in the east of England too; in Suthseaxnaland...Sussex! At least 4 each year, within a 40 minute drive of where I live.
yeah, I've been to a few in Sussex, it's becoming more popular each year
Any around or near Dallington in Sussex?
@@baronoflivonia.3512 Star Inn, Waldron always have an Apple Howling (Wassailing ) but this years unsurprisingly is cancelled.
Your channel is an absolute treasure. Thank you for helping keep our culture alive!
It is alive no more than a scroll in a library is alive. Lol
I’m so pleased to learn that these types of festivals are still happening in Britain. It looks like lots of children taking part as well. They will remember who they are and carry that memory with them all their lives.
I love these age old traditions. It's so important to keep our heritage alive, the practices of our ancestors. Wassailing seems to have deep roots in animism too, because by singing to the trees we are influencing their spiritual essence. And like that bloke said, Devon grow the most apples, so it's definitely working!
Exactly what I'm looking for; a sort of guide to help me find my way back to my ancestors and our culture. Thanks, Friend!
Truly beautiful. Thank you for helping raise awareness of Britain's wonderful culture.
Tradition and heritage is everything, such a pity so many can’t see it, great vid 🤘🏻
My family before they left for America were apple growers great video thanks
I am of largely English descent and it really feels good to see the old traditions that my family has all but lost ties to. Ironically enough of all the booze in the world hard cider makes me extraordinarily happy. Maybe its in the blood!
I don't care what tradition or religion or path makes a person love and respect trees. Anyway someone gets to that truth is truth to me.
I must say there really is such sweetness in this particular approach.
Thank you for preserving your culture.
Plants feel the energy, it's science. Nature that is celebrated bare the greatest fruit and here it is exemplified when the greenman speaks of the production of their trees. 😁
Thank you for helping
Maintain our traditions,
And recording them.
It's so nice that you're showing us the actual celebration of your traditional holiday. Very interesting, thank you.
Nice, this is my favourite pagan tradition. In Sussex they used to wassail beehives as well as apple trees (according to Jaqueline Simpson) , but the records of how this was done have been lost.
Whoa, that's the first I've heard of this.
The Old English goddess of bees was Béole; (O.N Beyla) we can render it *Beela in modern English
If we can find a parallel practice with more specifics in, say, Vedic literature, we could revive a ritual to our dear Beela.
I'm gonna hunt down some wassailing in Sussex this winter for sure. I'm sure the weldweald and downland open air museum do it.
Wholesome... more people should know of these traditions
Wesaþ ġē hāl, Æppeltrēow!
Be ye whole, Apple-trees!
Great video, Tom!
What an enjoyable evening everyone is having. It warms my cockles to see this ancient tradition being celebrated by both old and young. They’d make their ancestors proud.
Great video Tom! I would love to see a series of theses videos showing village pagan traditions all round the British isles and Ireland. Just think of all the ancient village pubs you could visit on the way, for... research purposes :P
I am a brand new subscriber from Bjorn and Viking stories. I'm glad I could find another Channel where I could learn and enjoy my people's culture thank you
Im going to be mulling cider and wassailing the tree in my front yard of urban Oklahoma this year in thanks for this video!
I think Virginia orchards may need to have a Wassail revival.
Wonderful video -It's Okay to be English
bUt WhAt Iz eNgLIsH?
@Repeat After Me: he was making a joke pretending to be one of the people who ask what English is, as if it has no true objective meaning.
@@AroundElvesWatchUrselves96 Look up Wikipedia what is Scottish or Welsh
@Repeat After Me: r/woosh
english are rasist
So beautiful. Glad this exists. Thanks for sharing.
Happiest Wassail! my fellow Pagans. Don't forget to also:
Bless the water within me, (you). 🕯♥️🕯🥰
Thank you for a fabulous glimpse into our past, that still retained a connection to the earth and the seasons. It must have felt a far more meaningful and wonderful way of life back then, and a lot happier I should think. I need more! 👍
Beautiful tradition
Wonderful video. We're having to choose between three wassailing events this year which means it's coming back!!! Wassail to you and thanks for the lovely watch!
I think this a fantastic little film tom. I was born in cornwall and moved around the south west to devon as well and now live back in the county of my birth. There are so many vital and life affirming traditions in our home counties, with many good and honest folk keeping them alive, and we should take our places amongst the revellers.
I love this! Thanks to everyone keeping these traditions alive.
I just wanted to say "beautiful," but I see many people already had the same reaction.
May the good king return soon and revive the land.
Thanks for the video. All of your videos have always been informative. A great help in teaching my kids about our Ancestors.
That was beautiful. I learned a lot!
How absolutely beautiful to see. I can't wait to visit "home" and this will be something on the list to see. Thank you.
Thank you so much Thomas, for this great video!
Once again you provide a most insightful and splendid document.
Great video - thanks for making it. I'm running a wassail in a couple of days time so this has been really helpful
Amazing video.
Thank you very much.
“Like all good nights mine begins in a five hundred years old pub.” Excellent.
I am absolutely fascinated by these English traditions.
We have no culture apparently I've been told. But this is our culture and should be celebrated and rightly so. Hail England
I'm a Pagan and proud.
Thank's for sharing, we do wassailing in the US, but with no context as to why, this helps us connect to our culture across the pond.
Wassail! Great video
There is a road on the edge of the West Midlands called Wassell Grove Lane. From the lane you can walk over a field to Wychbury Hill, the site of an ancient Celtic Grove of Tree and a hill fort. The name Wych is thought to have come from the Saxon tribe the Hwicce. The Hwicce conquered, and genetics would suggest assimilated with the Dubunni. The fort once stood very close to the border between the Dubunni (later the Hwicce) and the Cornovi. I am fascinated by the mixed Celtic Germanic inheritance we have.
I have always thought of the 'green man' as being more Celtic, not sure if I am right? The king and queen has echoes of beltane? Thanks for another informative video. Great to see our heritage being celebrated.
The Green Man is certainly Celtic at the very least.
Hu-wicce People !
Hwicce (Old English: [ʍi:kt͡ʃe], /hw-ik-chay/) was a tribal kingdom in Anglo-Saxon England. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the kingdom was established in 577, after the Battle of Deorham. After 628, the kingdom became a client or sub-kingdom of Mercia as a result of the Battle of Cirencester. From Wikipedia. They were a Saxon Tribe (hence the West Country type accent in Worcestershire) the Mercians were mostly Angles.
@@robfictionwriter3310
Deorham was won by the West Saxons. Are you saying that the Hwicce were originally part of Wessex, being Saxons?
577 after the battle of Dyrham the area of the Dobunni fell to the Gewisse (predecessors to the West Saxons). West Saxons then came in and set up an Germanic led area. Angles defeated the West Saxons by 628 and took tribute from the leaders of the Hwicce and integrated their area in Mercia. Penda did the same with the Welsh area around Wroxeter.
I come from the Blackcountry the accent is definitely Angle, similarities with other Midlands and Northern English accents. Three miles over Cent and into the area of the Hwicce the old accent was very 'country' more in common with the West Country (Saxon Areas).
Most of the genetics of the Hwicce were probably pre Anglo-Saxon, however, culturally they integrated in the Germanic World.
That is what I think anyway.
The name Hwicce could be an insult to the native British people of the Lower Severn Valley, it could come from the name Gewisse, it could be a reference to 'wicker' making things from reeds (there were large reeds beds in the lower Severn Valley). There would have been Germanic influence before 577 in the area. The Dobunni area was heavily Romanised, the locale elit no doubt relied on Germanic mercenaries. The Cornovi, Shropshire Staffordshire etc relied more on their own fighting force.
I was Wassail King at the Sandford Orchards wassail 2020, and the dreadlocked lady who was Wassail Queen in this film is a friend of mine here in Exeter. Its a small world, here in southern England’s biggest (and best) county 😉
Ahh this is super comfy. I had no idea about this tradition, thanks for shedding light on it! I would love to travel down to Devon next year to Wassail!
Worcestershire wassails, and always shall.
Boy this didn't age well unfortunately.
@@georgeptolemy7260 ?
@@aquilatempestate9527 I'm referring to the UNSPECIFIED VIRUS OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN shutdown
@@georgeptolemy7260 nothing stops good cider
I'm from Worcester! Can you tell me where the Wassail happens superficially?
Thank you for bringing attention to our wonderful culture Jive
More stuff like this!, important to document the traditions so they may never be forgotten. Very good video.
This is the good clean pagan-catholic fun i'm looking for.
nothing catholic about wassailing ...., LOL ...
@@amandagoodman4777 Catholicism has a minor pagan ethos, certainly more pagan than protestantism.
The Modern Hermeticist
This is a pagan holiday, not a Christian one.
Evola GANG
Wes hāl everyone : ) There was certainly a mixture of Christianity and Paganism in the Anglo-Saxon period... To bad Paganism was beat out by the Church, mostly because of war and education... and with Pagan's sacrificing people and animals etc... Wes du hāle.
Another brilliant, high quality production!!! Thank you so much Tom!
Remembering Norman Rowsell, Wassail to all his warm bodied family.
So heartwarming to watch
We so could use more dancing in the streets with the seasons over here in the States. Returning something to the soil is wisdom we've lost.
Wow, the cinematography is getting so great.
You do important work Tom! Curses upon anyone who denies you the right to be rewarded for your efforts.
Brilliant video. We attended our local Wassail last weekend, tis a great tradition! Loves me a Wassail!
I am a Cider Drinker,
I drinks it all of the day,
I am a Cider Drinker,
it soothes all me troubles away,
Ooh arrh, ooh arrh ay, Ooh arrh, ooh arrh ay.
(Rumour has it the Wurzels are the Illuminati).
Drink up thee cider,
for tonite we merry be.
The Wuzzles
Thank you again for another invaluable treasure 💎⚔️ Science is just catching up to these ancient and subtle intuitions 🔬
They're reviving this in some parts of Scotland
Blessings of Zemyna (Baltic Goddess of the soil) on your Wassail.
Prince Charles famously talks to his plants. Charles confirmed Pagan.
Prince Charles is a fool who with the aid of a wool headed bishop of canturbury brought about the advocation and invitation of sharia law to this country he is a chinless traitor to this nation,
The "royals" are controlled and deep in corruption. Even with their forced marriages.
@@firstnamett4656 They have lots of money and influence which brings power.
Just got on to your channel,will share. Sweet
WTHECK
Wassail is a Drink my family makes at Christmass aka Yuletide
3/4 Apple cider
1/4 cranberry juice
Cloves, Cinnamon sticks, Allspice, nutmeg and vanilla. One Orange with whole cloves stuck into the skin.
Cook for 6 hours in crockpot or oven.
Good Wodnesdæg
Excellent video :) Happy Twelfth Night!
Great to see such traditions revived! The more of our culture we reclaim the better! I wish for Halloween/Samhain and other traditions to become un-americanised.
OOOARRR! I'm a Dawlish, Devonian living in the Apple Isle of Tasmania which was settled by people from Devon and the West Country. It's good to see our Pagan Traditions are still being practiced in the place from whence I came. We need more of it to reconnect with our Culture and Nature.
Ƿes þu hal, freond!
I, too, dwell in the Apple Isle (Huon Valley). Pre CONvid we had our own wassailing during the mid-winter festival held at Willie Smith's Orchard. Hopefully it will make a comeback, as it was very well supported.
And, yes, we are in dire need of reconnecting with our ancient culture and spirituality.
Be well.
@@starrcitizenalpha7847 Excellent news Starr Citizen Alpha. Good to read that even here on the Apple Isle you and your friends are still practising the Old Pagan Ways. And it's no wonder because Tasmania resembles the West Country in so many ways. Cadw'n iach!
Thank you for sharing this👍
Wassail sounds a lot like the Dutch 'wees heel' which translates to 'be whole'.
I love this video so much. I've been wondering what this would look like in real life.
I am VERY HAPPY to see this tradition and the pure joy of my people carry on! God Bless The Irish, the Scots, the Brits, and the Nords!! I know we all disagree, but we are All the same blood and I love ye'!! I hope we all have peace and joy one day.
Thanks but British means English, scottish and welsh fyi
Wassail from Wessex!
Very interesting! Where I am in the United States, we have a particular kind of spiced apple cider that we call Wassail (pronounced “Wassel”). It is generally associated with Christmas time.
Great video mate. Looks fun
This is so great to learn about. My family left England in the late 1800s for New Zealand and Id love to learn more about my ancestors culture and traditions
Waes hael Tom! Good health to you and your loved ones!
Great stuff Tom, many thanks.
Note to self: wassail the newly planted apple tree come January. Might as well do the cherry tree as well.
The village in Norfolk where I grew up revived the wassail when I was a kid, I'm sure it was a lot more hippyish than our ancestors version but it was a lot of fun.
I'm astounded that anyone would criticise you for asking for donations to help make videos of this quality. Great video, thanks very much.
Banjos and guns.... has Devon become America? =p
Either way, I love it! Love a bit of Morris dancing and I hope this becomes more celebrated and widespread throughout the UK.
I think the Anglo Saxon metrical Charm for Unfruitful land contains elements you could call a sortof proto-wassail. A prayer for fruitfulness and to drive away evil.
Erce, Erce, Erce, mother of earth,
May the Ruler of all, the eternal Lord, grant you
growing and flourishing fields,
increasing and strengthening,
high stalks and lovely fruits,
and the broad barley-crop,
and the white wheat-crop,
and all the fruits of the earth.
czcams.com/video/u1ti7iB9cy4/video.html
The Eternal Anglo and the Infinite Saxon...
this video is very well produced, surprised it has so few views
Treebeard and the Ents approve of this celebration.
What a wonderful tradition. I love the connection with the ancient - we don't have that in the U.S.
Wæsail! In mazers of mead!
We've made wassail for years and years.....
@@C.Noble13
🍷 ☀️
That's fascinating, I didn't know about this! I started singing to trees recently, without thinking much about it. It feels really good. 🌳
>I like to represent Earth, Wind, and Fire
Do you remember? Dancing in September!
Well done once again Tom!
Crikey, Baldric is 50! All the cider must be doing him good.
Real culture our culture
Lovely
My mates are interested in this folk lore traditions. Will share it. Cheers