image credit: Pentacle Drummer, Wassail 2019
Wassailing with the Pentacle Drummers in Pevensey: When Greg Draven meets Thomas Hardy under the Royal Oak Tree
read full story about the social and religious history of wassailing here
NOTE FROM ROYAL OAK AND CASTLE: Wassail
Tomorrow we will have a few outside stalls for food and drink, these will be cash only as we only have 1 card machine. Please bring change. Look forward to seeing you all x
—Royal Oak and Castle, 17 January 2020
Saturday 18 January 2020
18:00 – 23:00
Wassail 2020
Cattle Market Car Park: Outside The Royal Oak And Castle, Pevensey
The 8th Annual WASSAIL by the Pentacle Drummers is back once again for the year 2020. It’s a big one folks. Join us for THE Wassail a torch-lit procession to the Wassail site and a celebration of tradition.
Raising money for St Wilfrid’s Hospice.
With us this year
Black Swan Morris
Anderida Morris
Smoke and Mirrors
Supported by
Eastbourne Bonfire Society
Seaford Bonfire Society
Southover Bonfire Society
Taking place once again in Pevensey at The Royal Oak And Castle.
Plenty of parking including disabled parking.
Join us for what is a magnificent evening.
17:30 Open
18:15 Welcome & Opening Drum
19:00 Black Swan / Anderida Morris
19:30 Smoke ‘and’ Mirrors
20:00 Procession / Wassail Ceremony
21:00 Raffle
21:30 Black Swan / Anderida Morris
22:00 Pentacle Drummers
22:30 Music until close
23:00 Close
UDPATE: PENTACLE DRUMMERS: 15 JANUARY
So, If you are coming to the Wassail.. and why wouldn’t you? You will need to help us sing our Wassail Song. Sung to the Tune of the Wild Rover. Print them off or bring them with you and make sure its not just a few tuneless drummers singing along!
Our WASSAIL Song
To the tune of The Wild Rover
Now yuletide has gone, and new Year’s begun,
Pray open your doors, and let us come in.
To this ancient land, we will kindly salute.
For it is an old custom, you need not dispute.
Chorus;
And we’ll Wassail, Wassail… Wassail, Wassail,
And joy come with our, our jolly wassail.
We hope that your apple trees, prosper and bear,
And bring forth good cider when we come next year.
We hope that your seeds will prosper and grow,
That you may have plenty and some to bestow.
Chorus x 2.
Feature
SATURDAY 19 JANUARY 2019: Wassailing with the Pentacle Drummers in Pevensey: When Greg Draven meets Thomas Hardy under the Royal Oak Tree
The origins of wassailing, like Christmas carols, are fascinating and complex, with a rich landscape intimately associated, in particular, to rural communities.
Wassailing demonstrates an interleaving of social history and religious events linked to the seasonal calendar.
In “Under the Greenwood Tree” (1872) by Thomas Hardy, for example, there is a tradition of Christmas caroling, (which was earlier known as wassailing), with groups of singers travelling from house to house, singing carols at each, for which they are often rewarded with gifts, money, mince pies, or a glass of an appropriate beverage. Read full story here
—Bay Life, 18 January 2019
about wassails, wiki
Wassail is a beverage of hot mulled cider, drunk traditionally as an integral part of wassailing, a Medieval Christmastide English drinking ritual intended to ensure a good cider apple harvest the following year.
The word wassail comes from Old English was hál, related to the Anglo-Saxon greeting wes þú hál , meaning “be you hale”—i.e., “be healthful” or “be healthy”.
Beverage
Wassail is a hot, mulled punch often associated with Yuletide, drunk from a ‘wassail bowl’. The earliest versions were warmed mead into which roasted crab apples were dropped and burst to create a drink called ‘lambswool’ drunk on Lammas day, still known in Shakespeare’s time.
Later, the drink evolved to become a mulled cider made with sugar, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg, topped with slices of toast as sops and drunk from a large communal bowl.
