You many a plum and many a pear;
For more or less fruits they will bring
As you do give them wassailing.
Hesperides, 1648.
Boys called howlers used to go round wassailing the orchards. Within doors, toasted bread and sugar were soaked in new cider and made hot, part to be drunk by the farmer’s family and the howlers, and part to be poured upon the best bearing apple-tree. The tree was then encircled by the wassailers, singing a special song. Mrs. Hewitt describes the ceremony thus: ‘On Old Christmas Eve it is customary for farmers to pour large quantities of cyder on the roots of the primest apple-trees in the orchard, and to place toast sops on the branches, all the while singing the following:
Yer’s tü thee, old apple-tree,
Be zure yü bud, be zure yü blaw,
And bring voth apples güde enough,
Hats vul! Caps vul!
Dree-bushel bags vul,