BRONZE URN AND CAULDRON (circa 500 b.c.)
(British Museum)
Vessels such as these are unknown outside the British Isles.
A prominent god whose worship appears to have been widespread was connected with the apple tree, which in the Underworld and Islands of the Blest was the "Tree of Life". Ancient beliefs and ceremonies connected with the apple cult survive in those districts in southern England where the curious custom is observed of "wassailing" the apple trees on Christmas Eve or Twelfth Night.[194] The "wassailers" visit the tree and sing a song in which each apple is asked to bear
Hat-fulls, lap-fulls,
Sack-fulls, pocket-fulls.
Cider is poured about the roots of apple trees. This ceremony appears to have been originally an elaborate one. The tom-tit or some other small bird was connected with the apple tree, as was the robin or wren of other cults with the oak tree. At the wassailing ceremony a boy climbed up into a tree and impersonated the bird. It may be that in Pagan times a boy was sacrificed to the god of the tree. That the bird (in some cases it was the robin red-breast) was hunted and sacrificed is indicated by old English folk-songs beginning like the following:
Old Robin is dead and gone to his grave,
Hum! Ha! gone to his grave;