History Daily - Saturday Matinee: Gone Medieval

Episode Date: December 20, 2025

On today’s Saturday Matinee, we unwrap the ancient holiday tradition rooted deep in medieval folklore know as "wassailing". Link to Gone Medieval: https://pod.link/1564113746 Support the show! Join Into History for ad-free listening and more. History Daily is a co-production of Airship and Noiser.Go to HistoryDaily.com for more history, daily.

The holiday season is upon us, and with it comes a bundle of traditions that we observe, but may not understand. Why do we kiss under the mistletoe? What is mistletoe? Why do we decorate Christmas trees? Why trees? Why is gingerbread almost exclusively a holiday treat when it's so obviously delicious all year round? Every region has its peculiar fashions and cuisine, too.

In Italy, there's Panetone and the Feast of Seven Fishes, unless you're in Sicily, where it's 12 fishes. There are Christmas puddings, mince pies, fruitcakes and eulog, mold wine and eggnog, advent calendars, Christmas cards, caroling, and was sailing. And what's that? Every year we sing, here we come a whistling, but don't really know what it is. So on today's Saturday matinee, we're bringing you an episode from the podcast Gone Medieval, which explores this ancient tradition rooted deep in medieval folklore. I hope you enjoy.

While you're listening, be sure to search for and follow Gone Medieval. We put a link in the show notes to make it easy for you. Hello, I'm Matt Lewis. Welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We've got the most intriguing mysteries, the gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings to the printing press,

from kings to popes to the crusades. We cross centuries and continents to delve into rebellions, plots and murders, to find the stories big and small that tell us, how we got here. Find out who we really were with Gone Medieval. Now, you might be thinking that all the Christmas and New Year festivities are done and dusted for another year, and you took your decorations down on 12th night by the 5th of January, right, so they're all boxed up for the next 11 months or so until it all comes round again. Well,

you'd be right, but there are some people and parts of Britain that still celebrate old 12th night on the 17th of January. It's the time when folks go out to sing to local apple trees. Yes, that's right, sing to the trees and eat king cake or 12th night cakes. In a new year act of generosity on the part of the High Lord of History Hit Towers, Dr. Eleanor Yarniger and I

have been let out of the gone medieval dungeon and we're being transported to deepest, darkest Devon for a very special treat. We're off to Grey's Cider Farm in Halstow to witness the Halstow Wasail, which is a unique and fascinating and actually fairly new tradition, but one which is rooted deep in our medieval past. Wasailing is the tradition of singing to bless the trees for a good apple harvest. The Halstow Wasail tradition has been established over the last few years

in conjunction with artists and academics as a celebration of the folklore and science behind cider making. Each year, Greys invite local singers and friends to join them in their orchards to take part in the ceremony and hear songwriter Jim Corsley sing their very own Halstow-Wasailing song before sharing a sip from the Wasail Cup to promote a healthy crock. Oh, there we are. Well, it's a little bit blowy up here. But we're on day release. We've come to Halstow farm near Exeter and I've managed to bring me best buddy, Eleanor, with me.

Eleanor, why are we here? We are here. It's the best reason to be let out of a dungeon of all time. We are here for a wasail. Wasele! Waseil! So, this is the most exciting possible thing because, A, we're going to do something really medieval. B, we're going to hear some really cool songs based on old folk traditions.

And C, C, we're going to have cider. There will be cider. I can't wait. Neither can I. But just before we find out more about what. the evening has in store for us. I want you to imagine a winter's night, just like this one, but many centuries ago. Frost is clinging to bare branches and darkness has descended across the land. This is the moment when the centuries-old tradition of was sailing comes alive.

The air will soon be filled with the sound of laughter, song and the clanging of tankards. We're here to celebrate the ancient practice of wassailing. The revelers emerge from the shadows. They carry with them a large, steaming bowl, its contents swirling with the heady aroma of spices and alcohol. The word wassail echoes through the night, its origins rooted in the old Norse phrase, vas hail, meaning good health. This simple toast would evolve over centuries into a complex tradition that blended celebration, superstition and community spirit. As Christianity spread across England,

Wasailing found its place in the Yuletide celebrations. On 12th night, the fizz and pot of roasted crab apples bursting in the bowls of spiced ale marked the creation of lambswool, a favourite wassail drink. The warm, sweet aroma wafted through manor houses and humble cottages alike, bringing comfort against the winter church. But Wasailing wasn't always a peaceful affair.

In some regions the tradition took on a more raucous tone. Imagine the thunderous knocking on the feudal lord's door, the boisterous demands of peasants for figgy pudding and ale. Their drunken songs and laughter pierced the night, a reminder of the social upheaval that Christmas temporarily allowed. As centuries past Wasailing evolved, the clinking of coins dropping into Wasail bowls replaced the earlier demands for food and drink.

The tradition of going door to door transformed into what we now know as caroling with songs of good cheer replacing rowdy demands. Back to the present day and we're going to catch up with songwriter Jim Corsley who leads the Halstow Wasail. Eleanor and I are finally out of the gone medieval dungeon and in the wilds. Thank you so much for joining us Jim.

Thank you for having me. Can you tell us to start off with where we are? So we're on a farm called Halstow, which is near Tedburn St Mary in Devon. And it's a very ancient farm with a very old name that might possibly mean holy place. We're not sure. That's what local place name experts reckon. And we hold quite a new was sale here. So this has only been going since 2020.

It started as a project by a local artist called Simon Pope, who wanted to celebrate the more unseeing. elements in traditional cider making, like the mould and bacteria and fungi and the yeasts that are in the air. And Halstow is a very traditional cider maker. They've been making cider here, several generations in the family. And there's no artificial ingredients at all in their cider making. It's all old oak barrels and natural fermentation. I'm glad we're doing this before we've got anywhere near the cider, otherwise this might be a very drunken chat. Just completely a huge ride off. But I'll tell you what, when you're standing on the side of this hill in Devon, it's

exactly what every romantic idea about Devon is. There's nothing but hills going on to the horizon. There's oak trees. And we're standing in the middle of an orchard where all the trees are covered in moss. It's just the idealist romantic vision of what you'd want. And you kind of get a sense of this holiness attached to the place name. So I'm choosing to believe this, even if we have no record of it. What's the history behind was sailing? I think it's one of those words, it's a very medieval word. Lots of people might have heard of it, but what really is it? There's lots of different versions of wassailing today.

The main thing people all agree on is that it comes from the Anglo-Saxon word, Vass hail, meaning be you healthy, be you of good health. And some people believe it was used as a form of cheers as well. So people say, wasail, and the traditional response to that was drink hail. It's a very handy response. and I feel like that needs to make a comeback. I mean, I guess it makes sense in a lot of European traditions now. Like, I mean, in Czech we say natravi, so, you know, to your health whenever we cheers.

So, yeah. Exactly. And actually, it's good that it's revived because often people say, you know, Prost or Slangeva. And then when it comes to English, people are not sure what's the proper English word, apart from cheers. And so they should get Wausau back on the scene again. Bring it back. Bring it back.

So it's evolved into several different interpretations over the year. So in big country houses and wealthy people, you'd have a Wasail feast or a Wassel ball, and there would be a big elaborate Wasail bowl on the table as a centrepiece, and it was just the big old party, basically. But in the country, it's involved into a couple of different versions. So what we do here at Halstow is an orchard visiting Wasail, where we go and sing to the trees, because that's considered normal around these parts. And we sort of wake up the trees in the middle of winter,

and possibly scare away any evil spirits that might be hampering the harvest and kind of just remind the trees what they're supposed to do. So it also involves pouring some cider on the roots to show them what they've got to make in the autumn. And there's another type of was sailing, which is basically like caroling in any other name. And the famous one is at Bodmin in Cornwall, but they go around the town and sing Wassail songs and carols.

And they dress very, very smart and get fed, cider and other drinks as they go around house to house and get progressively merrier. Well, I guess I've got a question. This is a relatively new Wausale, as you said. How did it come about? Is there a particular place that you're drawing this new tradition from? Yes, there's lots of Wossails, particularly in the West Country, Devon, Somerset, and Cornwall.

And a lot of Waussell's songs were collected by folk song collectors. The late 1800s like Sabin, Bering Gold, here in Devon and Cesselsharp, Somerset and they also collected or wrote down some of the ceremonies that they saw taking place as well and a few of them have survived so we have got a few that are completely unbroken tradition as far as we know and then quite a lot died out during particularly during the second world war a lot of traditions where men went away and didn't come back so a lot died out um i come from a village in east evan called wimple which was famous for it's cider making not anything to do with the hats at none to wear. Sorry. Why are you wearing a wimple?

Yeah, it's fine. But Wimple's had a famous cider factory called White Ways of Wimple that went back many years, but also they had a was sailing tradition that Beringold wrote about and then it was filmed by Pfe in the 1930s and then it died during the war and then it was revived again by the local history society in the 80s and that's how I got involved. It's so important to have those old records then. Somebody has gone to the trouble of writing this down. or filming it in the 1930s just before the tradition was broken

but that allows you to get as close as possible to recreating what it was. Definitely, yes. One of my favourite records was written by Sabin Verengald and he wrote about how an old lady who was a widowed farmer she was the only one left of her family and she lived near him and she believed that the wassailing was so important that she would go out into the orchards every January and wassail the trees all by herself in the dark

Oh. I just, that really moves me that story. Nowadays, we do it for a bit of fun, and it's a bit of just a good knees up and to get the community together. But obviously, back in the day, people did really believe in this. The genuine belief that you need to do this

to have a good harvest next year and therefore to be able to survive. Exactly. Well, I think that this is such a really interesting thing as well, because I think there is some kind of false modern idea that if a tradition is a tradition, it's been going the whole time. And if we think about our medieval ancestors,

I mean, surely the wassailing might have got a little disrupted by the Black Death or say the Hundred Years' War, if your village is drawn really heavily on and suddenly you've just not got a lot of people about, these are things that can kind of fall by the wayside. And it doesn't make something non-traditional to bring it back. It just means there was a gap there. And I think that's as legitimate as anything else.

Exactly. Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned that there's two kind of different main sorts of wassail. But do we need to think of wassailing? as there's loads of different ways to wasail. Even within those two categories, it's a local tradition, so it's spiders out everywhere, and everybody's doing different things,

but they're all valid wassales. There's a big wassailing umbrella, as it were, and this... Which we're standing under right now. Exactly. And a lot of people lump things under it. You know about the Marie Lloyd in Wales, and that gets put under the wassail umbrella.

Some people don't always like that, because they said this is our tradition, it's not to do with that. And also the traditions are evolving all the time, like this one here. So this is slightly new was sale concept. Well, I was wondering, because, you know, there are some was sale traditions, which I'm into because they get a little rowdy. So where do we, on the rowdy scale from, we're going door to door,

we're knocking on doors, and we are demanding ale from the local lord to, we're just having a bit of a thing with the trees, isn't it? Yeah. Where does this wassale fall? this is actually i'm going to be a bit disappointed eleanor because this is actually quite um what makes you think eleanor wants to go to order to drud wickd drinking and the actual i'll say the wasso part of the ceremony is quite polite and reverent but the after show where people go into the barn and sample the cider and usually bread and local cheese and apple cake then that's when the party begins all right well i mean

i'm here now i'm about to make it round it's all right actually actually You touch on an interesting point there, that going door to door and begging, because, like, was sailing is really just part of a bigger umbrella of lots of folk traditions in the British Isles, which are often just elaborate excuses for going begging. And we've got them throughout the year, so, like, souling, people go door to door, sing a souling song, and then you might get a soul cake in return, and then there's Maying traditions where you go to door and sing a May song, and every occasion throughout the year. Just legitimising reasons to get drink and food.

food from wealthier people who otherwise wouldn't want to give it to you. Exactly. I love that. How did this wassail come about? And what's unique and new about this? Simon Pope who started this. He's very interested in community art projects. And I worked on a previous one with Simon that was all about looking at the tin mining industry of Dartmoor,

celebrating that and creating a new tradition around that as well. And so Simon knew of my Wasail involvement. And so he grew up quite near. to hear in Tedburn and he wanted to look at wassailing from a different angle and again look at the unseen elements in cider making and also looking at this slightly gross but things like gut flora and stuff that's in the community in an unseen way as a kind of way of bringing the community together and part of his envisagement for this tradition was to create a new wassail bowl that was made of the earth from this very farm

So they dug up some of the clay here and got a local potter to make a wasail bowl, communal bowl, which is also part of some wassailing traditions, where you all have a sip of cider at the tree. And we were very lucky because the very first was sale was January 2020. And then two months later, drinking from communal bowls was not so fashionable. Well, I actually really love this because I like the focus on community and the fact that what you're kind of doing with this project is really, expanding the way that we can define what our community is. So it includes microbes. It includes,

you know, our own gut microbiome. It includes everything that's around us. It's not just about what people do. It's how people are also relating to the plants around them, the yeast in the air, all of these things. And a lot of modern cider producers these days use champagne yeast, and they're in big stainless steel vats and things like that. So Halstow is quite rare in being one of the very few completely traditional cider makers in that way and they use natural fermentation so the the yeast that's all in the air and on the cob walls and in the cob webs and so on so simon envisages this tradition to celebrate all of the elements so we've got three different stages basically of this wasail so we go into the orchards and sing to the trees and the lichen and all the stuff

that's around the trees and then we go into the cider cellar where all the barrels are and we sing to the barrels and all the bacteria in there. And then we're going to the pound house, which is where all the apples are crushed and turned into juice. But it doesn't seem to me that this is that far away from what medieval people were doing. They were trying to drive a good harvest and get closer to nature and build that connection, which it sounds like exactly what you're doing, with a bit of added understanding of germ theory and microbes that they wouldn't have been aware of. But probably talking about roughly the same thing. Bang on. Now we have this understanding about the science behind it. One of the phrases that we feature in the song is they either call it God is good or

the great good unseen. So they believe there was this magic that made the fermentation happen. They just didn't know how it happened. Now, we think we know how it happens. I love this. You see this all the time in medieval documents. So, for example, herbariums, which are big collections of various kinds of plants, when they will talk you through the medicinal properties of these things. And oftentimes there will be things like a prayer to a nettle that you say before you collect it, or an incantation that you say over the willow as you collect the bark. And there's this idea here that there's a kind of magical property or there is a holy property that you are bringing out of the plant.

And I don't see how this is any different, except for you get delicious cider at the end, so it's therefore better. Exactly. We've had some very interesting conversations with other wassales I've been involved in, where the community's been really up for having a new wassail in their village. and there was one recently where they got the local vicar involved and the vicar was really up for it too. Yes.

But then the parish council said, no, we don't want this. We think it's ungodly and we don't want this. Even though the vicar was really game. And so we tried to explain that, you know, a wassail is basically, it's just a blessing of the crops. And some wassales, they actually had the vicar come and bless the wassail before they do the wossail, which is very interesting.

And I use the example of rogation, which is Christian festival where they go and bless the crops and sing hymns and stuff. And that came from the Roman celebration. It's like Rogari. So the Christian is a Roman thing that's they Christianise and then. Surprise.

Christian church has always been big on, you know, adhering itself to all of those festivals that everybody likes and wants to keep doing. So you just need a Christian reason to keep doing them. They've always been good at that. And it's unusual they wouldn't want to do something that encourages community

and engagement with nature and all of those kinds of things. It sounds like the plot of an 80s movie. It's like, you know, the community. just wants to have a wasail and the parish council has stepped in. So we're going to have to hold the greatest wassail ever to change their minds, lads. I'm sure it's an episode of Vickory Dibble yourself.

And I think people have always hedged their bets religion-wise for many hundreds of years. So just tick all the boxes. This is particularly interesting, I think, because in the modern age, it can be easy to be cynical about the things that our ancestors did, you know, singing to trees and stuff like that. but it speaks to their belief in things that they didn't quite understand and the fragility of that relationship and you do whatever you can to encourage it and build it.

Although we might understand a bit more of the science, or at least we think we understand a bit more of the science, I think it's nice that we can still do that on a scientific basis and celebrate all of those things. So we're doing the same thing maybe for slightly different reasons. Yeah. Even though we have a closer understanding of precisely what's happening and our ancestors are maybe doing it in hope

and we're doing it in a little bit more knowledge. And it feels at the moment, the Wassells are really taking off. There's loads of new ones springing up everywhere, like even in Central London and up north, where they're not particularly orchard visiting Wossels anyway. And there seems to be a need for this for some reason. It's such a good community thing, isn't it?

I saw your face light up when you see Central London. Be right back. I'm just Googling the Central London Wallsale. It's fine. It's fine. But, you know, I think that this is such an incredible thing. And it's one of the things we can really learn from our medieval ancestors. is that there is a lot to be celebrated in these various parts of the year.

And I think we actually really identify with that still. It's very easy in the 21st century to see ourselves as always atomized off from each other. But there is some kind of deep human need to relate to nature, to our neighbors. And I think this is just such a beautiful example of that. I don't wonder if people get more and more interested in things like mindfulness. This seems to me a great example of that kind of just being in the moment, getting closer to nature, being with the community around you, engaging in a communal activity. It's quite a mindful thing to do, I guess.

It definitely has that effect, especially when you're there on a dark January night in an orchard. If that doesn't wake you up, then when the guns go off, that really makes you very present. So you've mentioned that there are different wasales that happen in different ways all across Devon. Is that also true of the songs? Do they have different ways of approaching it? So the house visiting wassales very clearly usually start saying, hello, good master, good mistress, we've come to sing to you, blah, blah, blah. And then it usually goes on to say a bit about what they're coming to beg for as well. Give us some figgy pudding.

Yeah, exactly. For about 15 verses, it's fine, it's normal. That sort of thing. Yeah, so they're pretty standard. And then, again, the orchard visiting wasales are also pretty standard across the board. And just like the house visiting one sing about, Hello, good mistress master, the orchard one's like, Hello, Tree, we've come to sing to you on this lovely night.

And you're here in the rhyme as well. It talks about you'll produce a huge crop of cider apples and all stuck underneath the stairs. And yes, interesting, though, they don't mention so much about scaring away evil spirits in the songs. So I do wonder if that's something that's been added on in recent years. a bit more, perhaps.

Yeah. It's not something you hear so much about. Are there stages to the Wasail song? So do you go through steps in the process, maybe at each different place you do the orchard, the barrel store, and where the apples are pressed? Is there important sections to what you need to do at each of those stops? There are, yes.

So each verse has been tailored to sing about very specific aspects that we want to recognise. So the lichen on the tree and the bark and... Everything related to the trees in those verses. Then we go indoors and we sing about the barrels and the bacteria and the use and the cob and so forth. Nothing is left out. Here at Grey's cider farm in Halstow, we've got the chance to speak to Theo Gray, who represents the 13th generation of his family to be making cider here over more than 350 years. We're meeting him in the so-called Pound Chamber.

Theo, it's great of you to join us now. where have we come? We're indoors. So we have just walked into our pound chamber, above our pound house, in the top of our main cider building. We're getting closer to the cider. With every step. But I love this. It's got these great old beans. It's got a nice A-frame roof.

It's everything that I would kind of expect from a medieval building. Even if it isn't medieval itself. Come on, it doesn't change that much. And what is a pound house? A pound house is where you make cider. We're above it in the pound chamber. and we're a level above the pound house, which is convenient because the apples come in above the press,

and then interestingly the cellar is even further down the hill. So the apples come in at the top level, they go down one level into the pound house where they're pressed, and then everything's gravity down to cellar into storage. Until we get cider. And your family own and run this cider farm. How long has your family been here? We've been here since around 1660,

sharing the same name. So yeah, I'm Theo Gray, Grey Cider. We've been here for 13 generations, we think. Wow. So you're the 13th generation making cider on this spot? I am, yeah. It must be incredible to feel attached to that much history and tradition. Yeah, definitely. I do. It's quite hard to explain that it's very special. You know, I love being from here and having that sort of connection to a place where my family's been such a long time. So we know this for sure about your family. You've had this farm and this orchard for quite sometime. But do we have any evidence, for example, like I can't imagine that these were the first people who were like, oh, do you know, I think this might be a good place to grow some apples. No, I mean, it's a very typical traditional Devon Longhouse with buildings and a pound house and

orchards. But this is cider country and people would have been making cider here, possibly since the Romans. You know, we've got a good climate for growing apples. And there's lots of orchards and lots of evidence of lots of old sider makers. So yeah, a long time. That's even more impression of those, isn't it? So your family have been here 350 years, 13 generations, but you're tapping into stuff that has been on this spot for maybe 2,000 years? Yeah, it seems like we've been here for such a long time, but that's been going on since people have been here, almost, I suppose. You almost feel quite small in the chain of cider makers. Yeah. Speaking of quite small things, one of the things I'm really excited

about in terms of what we're going to see today is the fact that you are using really traditional, very old cider making processes whereby you're not using any additives in the process, are you? No, so the dry cider that we make is just the juice from the apples sauce only on our farm. We've milled them, we've pressed the juice, and then we've racked it. So we've pumped the cider from one container to another, leaving behind sediment at each turn. So eventually we're left with a nice clear, not cloud. dry cider, which we sell with no additives, and the sweetener has just got a bit of sugary stuff added to it. So, yeah.

And what is the process? So when we think about the was sale today, we're going out, blessing the trees, hoping for a good harvest next year. Assuming you get that good harvest, what is the process through the year of collecting apples and then turning them into eventually glorious sight? Not that I'm obsessed with sight. No, you're being normal. We're actually in a pretty bad year at the moment in terms of apples. We've sort of slipped into an every other year cycle where we have a massive crop

and then this year, I mean, looking out into the orchard we've just been in, there is barely an apple on the tree. Eleanor and I are here to Wasail hard for you. Yeah, we are going to take care of this, don't worry. We need all the help we can get. Looking at in terms of harvest next year, I mean, we had a big harvest last year. We're quite high at about 600 feet, so we tend to be quite late picking. So we're picking apples at the end of October into November.

And then as soon as we pick them, you know, we start pressing. As soon as we've got apples too prepping. And again, it's quite a simple process, and it always has been, you get some apples, you squash them, you know, you mill them first, you scrap them, and then you squash them and get the juice. It's a simple process, but just one you've been doing for quite a long time. But why mess with ancient perfection? Well, I think that it's a really cool thing, because the closest that I have really seen to this in terms of other brewing processes is like Lambic in Belgium, where they're using wild fermentation.

they kind of just have very big open-air fats where they put all of the fruit and the grains and such things. So you know, whereas many other modern sideries might use, for example, yeast that they popped in, you're not doing that. No, we don't add any external yeast. All of the yeast that we end up using is naturally occurring in our cider apples. And again, in the very old orchards, we are not certain of all the varieties that we have, only the modern ones that the plant. planted, my father planted and in my grandpa's time, but in some of our older orchards, we don't know what's in there, but we still use all the fruit. That's an apple, I think, you know.

But it's interesting that you're still tapping into that very medieval idea and the idea of the wasail, that you're using what is in the apple, what nature is giving you to finish your product. You're not adding loads and loads of stuff to it. You're not going through myriad processes. You're just following nature, and that's surely what the wassail is all about. Yeah, like I was saying, it's quite a simple process. You know, we see apples, we mill them, we squash them and we make cider. There should be like a family motto. See apples, we squash and we make cider.

It's probably quite agricultural in that respect. You know, some people are very technical, and, you know, they know a lot about individual yeast and things like that, whereas we don't, but we know we've got our own, and that's what we use every other year. But I think today, where we're trying to get away from the use of chemicals and additives and additional processes, and we're all conscious of how processed a lot of our food is,

it feels really nice to be getting back to that really simple, natural process that you've always done here. Yeah, and it's interesting. It shows sometimes, you know, people want to know what's in the cider. Very now and then you'll be asked, you know, have you got kiwi cider, if it's strawberry cider? And then people ask what's in it? And I say, well, just apple juice.

We're getting the dry, that's all it is. And the sweet, there's a bit of sugar in there. It's apples and Devon. That's all you need. Exactly. This is the return to bimbo cider. I think that that's very important, you know. Have you got a favourite cider that you make?

All the cider we make is dry cider. We let it ferment all the way until it's about six and a half, seven percent. So all the natural sugar is gone. And that's the dry. And then we back sweet and that to make sweet and mix for a medium. So we've got sweet, medium and dry.

And I'd say my favourite is probably the dry, yeah. Oh, good man. But nothing added or taken away. I'm going to have to do a thorough investigation. before I make any claims, okay? You know, let's just see what happened. We're available to test cider. Yeah.

Well, thank you so much for joining us, Theo. It's been great to chat to you. I'm looking forward to the was sale and to seeing the cider process. Yeah, well, thank you very much. Thanks very much. Thank you. Well, the sun's beginning to go down now

and I spy quite a few people gathering by the farm buildings. These are our wassailers, I suspect. They're certainly dressed for muddy fields and the bracing night air, and there are a few handsome-looking dogs in tow too. So let's find out a bit more about some of these distinguished fellows who've come to Wasail to the Apples. Hi, I'm Trev Monkhambeck and we've been supporting or coming along to Halstow for the last three years, I think. We are a shanty group, but we keep going with the local

traditions because we're quite a long way from the sea. And wasailing is one which we always enjoy and come along and support and sing the old Wasail songs. Shanty singing was very much about rhythms. and work songs and that's why we sing the call and response type of songs. Whereas Wasailing goes back probably a little bit further than Chanty's singing and is about driving away the evil spirits from the trees so that you get the good apple harvest. So it's one of the old folk traditions and Chanty Singing is one of the newer folk in comparison I guess, yeah.

I'm Eric Partridge. I'm from North Taun in Devon. And I've been with Mariners for four years now. and I've come to all three of the wasteshours that we've done, thoroughly enjoyed, despite the cold. I was born in Breddon, unlike some of these poor blokes, but yeah, I think it's really important to keep all these traditions going. And we've been here now. This will be three years, four coming up,

and important to keep it going, I think. We sing to all the different parts of the process, so, yeah, hopefully we'll get nice. I think it's the sight of it that helps our singing. I'm in Maccalfoy. I've been with Mara's about eight years. now. I'm a Scott from Devon and I used to sing folk songs most of the time and see shantles are just a different branch of the folk scene and it's great fun. Hi I'm Steve. I was a young man

when I started 17 years ago. It's only 22. It feels like I'm a lot older than that but it's all the myth really and we come here very often to sing to the cider and we can't think of a reason why we shouldn't. It's very nice. Good fun. Old traditions. Hello, I'm David Ashby and I am also a shanty singer and I'm also a was sailor. In fact, I was a sailor. Oh dear, I think some of those jokes are maybe left over from the medieval period too. Although, as I always say, all the best things are. Now here's a very dapper gentleman in a bowler hat,

brandishing a metal drum. His name is Bill. Bill, you're wearing a very dapper bowler hat and I can see a drum hanging at your waist. What part does the drum play? Well, the drum just beats out the beat, but you've got to make a lot of noise in was sailing. It's really important. People bring along all sorts of tin items, old pans and things like that, just a bash.

So I'm not really a drummer, but this is a drum I picked up in Plymouth in about 1970 for a fiver at a shop. It's just a decent old drum, really. Made by Hawks, who became Boozy and Hawks. That was a London firm, and so it has got a bit of an old. pedigree to it, this old... Fantastic. How long have you been was sailing? Well, we've known about it for a long, long time,

but it's becoming very popular now. So I remember going to Wasales and organising Wasales about 1970, something like that, and reading about them, reading about the local Wasales in old history books and things like that. It died out for a long time, and I suppose after the war, perhaps, and after the Second World War,

and now it's being revived quite well. At any orchard, you go. fine, let's have a Wasay. Most villages around here do have them now. They're not as big as this one, but they do get together and talk about the apples and praise the apples and what it produces, which is a lovely cider. A Devonshire cider is particularly good. I don't know what it is. It's the soil, probably the soil. By far the best, yeah. It's a nice sail pitch. Have you got a favourite part of the Wasail process and why is it drinking cider? Yeah, it's a favourite. It's a community gathering, which is really important.

They don't get enough of them now. Everybody getting together, well, it's often very cold and rainy, but they dress up, they put on coats. And then around the orchards, if it's quite a big wassel, they'll have a bowl of cider-based punch warmed up for you to have as you go around.

And you've got to remember to take a mug with you because they don't lend them out. It sounds like, though, all of the cozy things that we think of for autumn, like around bonfire night and all of that countries, But in January, it's that same kind of cozy community, warming on a cold night kind of thing. But in January and people have forgotten it and we should bring it back. Certainly the fire, generally in the orchard, where the Wasail is taking place,

they do have a decent fire. And that does warm you up both visually and also, you know, on your skin as well. I think it's great to keep these traditions going. And the youngsters enjoy it. You stick a little maid up in the tree and you put toast in the tree. You get her down again after it. but it's all these little things that people do and they make up their own rules, some of them,

or their own traditions, within the main tradition. I mean, the most important day of any tradition is the day when it's not a tradition. It's the day when it starts. And then you keep that going and it becomes a tradition. I'm looking forward to this, Bill. I can't wait to see you up there, beating your drum. Well, I'm looking forward to it as well.

There's nothing I like better than beating me drum. Right. It seems like everyone's in line now. Bill is poised over his drum and Jim Corsley's got his accordion out. So let's head up to the field for the ceremony. So we're arriving in the orchard. There's a bonfire crackling that's welcome and we're going to start circling round and round the apple tree.

The Waseel song will begin with an incantation before breaking into a celebration of the yeast, bacteria and moulds to be found in the orchards and barns, on the apples and the presses in the barrels and significantly within each of the guests and in the cider they drink as they take part in the wasail. They've given me and Eleanor a song sheet, but we'll spare your ears. Now it's time to thank the tree for its rich yield of apples and for Theo and his dad to fire off a couple of shotguns, as you do. Old apple tree that blooms well and bears well Three bushel bags full and all under one tree. Hip hip!

Now, there's one more part of the outdoor ceremony to take part in, and that's drinking cider from the communal bowl. Now, I've got to drive home, so I don't get to partake this time. I'm having to restrain Eleanor on a bit of a leash here. The ceramic bowl itself is hanging from the tree, and there's something very special about it. It's been made specifically for this ceremony by Abigail Norris. a ceramicist from Gidley in West Devon.

So I have a lovely neighbour called Bill Murray, who has a fine voice and is very up to date with all the Devon traditions and knowledge. And he asked me if I would be involved in that project. And then I went to Hellstow and saw everything there. It was particularly struck by how beautiful the old barrels were in the cider making process. And I think that sunk into my thinking somewhere.

So when I started to make the bowl or make prototypes for it, it was the casks with a great big, lovely bands of metal around them that kind of influenced the form, as it were. How then did you go about creating the bowl? What did you have to bear in mind when you were creating the bowl for them? I knew that traditional wasail bowls are very ornate with lots of spriging, and little figures and trees and whatever, and I knew that wasn't the way that I wanted to work.

And so it was just going with my instinct about something much simpler and plainer. And actually what I realized was that wood turned wasale bowls, which was from the 17th century, I think, were also banded and also very simple and plain. And so I thought that was the direction that I wanted to go in. And so it was just a case of making some different shapes. to see what would work best. And that's what happened, really. It's interesting that you made the decision to go for a play in a bowl, I think, because when you're standing there on Grey's Farm, it is just such a beautiful spot.

Yeah. It doesn't need too much more adornment, does it? Because you're surrounded by all of the beauty of nature anyway. The bowl can be playing with that banding that just fits in with the cider, the elements of what it's doing. So I can see the logic of what you're talking about there. It was great. And I understand that the bowl is made with clay from the farm, is that right? Yeah, it is. How important was that to the project to have something that came from the soil of Grey's Farr? I think that's a really lovely thing.

Subsequently, I've worked with clay from around my studio here, and there's something really lovely about not transporting materials, hundreds of miles, and staying as local as you can is a really nice ethic. So that was really the beginning of my involvement in using local clay. That's really interesting that it's affected your work in that way too, because I guess from the sales point of view, it really fits with what they're trying to do to have a bowl that is made from the earth of the farm beneath the tree when they're talking about the joining together of the earth and the roots and the tree and the fruit

and nature all around it to have the bowl be part of that. It's not from outside the setting that it's being used in. It's a really nice touch. Yes. It was nice to be able to make a form that I was happy with and not be trying to do something that perhaps would have been the majority of was sale bowls, I think are the heavily decorated, embellished with sprigging, that would not really be something that I could even hope to do, let alone it's not something I wanted to do. Do you go to the House though or sale? Yes, I've been a couple of times.

How do you find it being involved in a ceremony like that and also seeing your bowl being at the centre of it? It's beautiful. I love it. I particularly love the music. In the distant past, I played music and was at university doing a music degree. So the music in particular, I just find really beautiful. But the whole setting is incredible there. It takes you to a different place, doesn't it?

Listening to the music, I think. It's just so special and timeless. It is because you get out on that hillside with a bonfire going and the chill in the air and everybody around singing. And you could be at any moment in time stood on that hill, couldn't you? Exactly, which is one of the things about Dartmoor, where we are, because you're up on the more. and it could be from any time in history

because not much really. I know there were obviously more trees up there, but not much has changed. And it is this connection through time. It feels like you're really connected. It's really lovely. Thanks to Abigail North. Well, I think Eleanor has managed to empty

the wasailing bowl by herself while you were gone. So, Eleanor, what did you think we've was sailed? I mean, this is genuinely one of the most special things I've ever got to do. And it's incredible, just that connect. back to what people have been doing for centuries to celebrate the connection to the earth and the fruits that it gives us and the cider that we make from it. I have to say being able to drink out of a bowl from the clay in the ground here with the cider

that it's been produced, that's just incredibly moving. It's a wonderful thing to be a part of, and it's so nice to see a tradition this alive. I think it's time we staggered back home. All right, well, I've got to go get more cider first, but I'll meet you at the car. Well, I think it's heartening that today in some corners of England, you can still hear the echoes of this ancient tradition, the pop of a cork from a bottle of spiced cider, the gentle sway of apple branches in the winter wind,

and the harmonious voices of modern was sailors, all harking back to a time when community, celebration, and a little bit of magic, helps people survive the darkest days of winter. And if you want to actually see all of this, we've filmed it. It's in a history hit documentary about medieval winter. The link is in the show notes. So the next time you raise a glass in toast,

remember the was sailors of old. Their legacy lives on in our holiday traditions. It's a testament to the enduring human need for warmth, community and good cheer in the depths of winter. And also of cider.