A centuries-old tradition which awakens the fruit trees and scares away evil spirits to ensure a good harvest, has taken place in Salford this week.
On Sunday, (January 19) Salford residents gathered at Ordsall Hall to celebrate the old folk custom -wassailing – with modern twists. Attendees were welcomed by the Queen of Orchard in her Tudor regalia as they banged drums and shook tambourines, singing a traditional wassailing song.
Cider made from apples harvested in previous years at Ordsall was poured at the roots of the apple tree, a piece of wassail (cider) soaked toast was placed on the branches, and one of the facilitators read out her own poem in tribute to the apple tree.
Head gardener at Ordsall Hall, Joanna Green, brought this South West variation of wassailing with her to Ordsall in 2019. She said: “I started off with just me… just doing a little bit of an offering and saying thank you for last year’s harvest.”
Since then, Salfordians have added their own modern twists to the folk practice, including a welcome by the Orchard Queen, writing poems, giving speeches to the trees, and invoking blessings. This year, dozens of attendees danced around the trees, singing the wassail song, following a procession to Monmouth Park.
“It’s starting to have its own life without sort of a top-down ‘this is how we celebrate wassail’ thing”, said Joanna. “The tradition is now building its own stories and that’s really exciting for me to see a new tradition being built out of such an old tradition.”
The word ‘wassail’ was a borrowing from the Old Norse salutation ves heill, literally meaning ‘be in good health’.
It was initially used in the sense of ‘hail’ or ‘farewell’, before developing into the drinking formula, ‘wassail…drinkhail’.
The ancient custom in this form is still practised across the country today, and is particularly popular in the cider-producing areas of England, such as Somerset and Devon. Across the country, there has been a surge in interest in the revival of old folk traditions.
Olivia Hersey, a local resident, thinks it’s ”great that the Salford community are bringing back centuries-old folk practices”, like wassailing.
She said: “Reconnecting with our country’s traditions feels really important during such turbulent social, political times like these.”
Practices like these are important in bringing together the wider community and making everybody feel welcome in their practice, with more apple wassails taking part around Manchester each year, including Chorlton and Fallowfield, either on twelfth night or around old twelfth night (17th January).
Old twelfth night comes from a time when the old Julian calendar was still in use before the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, which brings the twelfth night forward to January 12.