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By Barbara McAllister
Word of the Day: Wassail
Wassail is a hot spiced drink of ale or mulled wine typically drunk during the festive Christmas season. It also is a verb meaning to celebrate in a lively, generally noisy manner, typically going from house to house singing Christmas carols, presumably sustained by quantities of wassail. Wassailing was traditionally done during the holiday season, New Year’s Eve and Twelfth Night in Britain, but actually started in pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon days.
The word comes from an old Norse toast “ves heill,” meaning “to health” or “be well,” to which the reply was “drinkhail,” or “drink in good health.” Wassail originally was made of mulled ale, curdled cream, roasted apples, eggs, cloves, ginger, nutmeg and sugar and typically served in huge silver or pewter bowls. It was sometimes called “lamb’s wool,” because the roasted apples gave it a pulpy texture that looked somewhat like wool. In England, the master of the house drank to the health of the household from the wassail bowl and passed it along saying the Saxon version “wass hael.”
As early as 1066 servants and the poor would go house to house and ask to sip from the wassail bowl or beg for a fillup of a bowl they brought along. Fueled by alcohol, it often became a rowdy band of noisy hooligans. The out-of-control celebrations are said to be one reason Oliver Cromwell passed an ordinance in 1647 effectively banning Christmas by outlawing secular celebrations. No such problem today. If you’re looking to get into the holiday spirit, the Woodstock Inn and Resort in Vermont holds an annual Wassail Weekend in December. It features Christmas lights, candle dipping, crafts, gingerbread, horses on parade and presumably, lots of wassail. Cromwell would not have approved.
PHOTO: Historic Britain UK
