Singing to Trees to Make Good Cider: An Ancient English Ritual Is Back

A jet of steam rises with a hiss as a red hot poker plunges into a bowl of cider. A garlanded woman spears a piece of toast with a long fork and lodges the offering among the branches of a tree. Then, amid shouts from the watching crowd, the torch-lit ceremony ends with gunfire ringing out beneath the clear night winter sky.

For most of the year, Sheppy’s farm at Bradford-on-Tone in the west of England uses state of the art machinery to tend its 22,000 apple trees and produce more than half a million gallons of cider annually.

But for one evening in January, modern farming techniques are set aside for an ancient ritual called “wassailing,” where the coming year’s apple crop is blessed, evil spirits are chased away and cider is enthusiastically drunk by hundreds of spectators.

Dating from at least the 13th century, wassailing (the word derives from an Old English toast to good health, “waes hael”) seemed to have almost died out by the 1990s.

But recently, it has made a comeback at cider makers and community events, particularly in the west of England, spurred by growing interest in tradition and folklore, a renewed respect for the countryside and a desire among some Britons to liven up the grim winter months with a party.

“Wassailing fell by the wayside for a very long time and has had a huge revival,” said Louisa Sheppy, co-owner of Sheppy’s, a firm that has been making cider for more than two centuries, as she prepared the company’s farm for its seventh, consecutive year of hosting a wassail (one of dozens advertised around the region this winter).

Ms. Sheppy is not superstitious and does not really believe — as tradition holds — that the fate of the crop hinges on the annual wassail. But she values the event, which attracts more than 400 paying guests, promotes cider and features folk dancers known as Morris Men and a lively barn dance.

But before the dancing, visitors first joined in a song directed at two trees, imploring them to yield “hatfuls, capfuls, three-bushel bagfuls,” of fruit. Then the evening’s “wassail queen” (who symbolizes fertility and abundance) tasted heated cider, soaked a piece of toast in it and poured the rest around the tree roots.

Wearing a crown of ivy, mistletoe, hellebore and rosemary, the queen used a toasting fork to place the bread in the branches — a gesture designed to attract robins, which are seen as harbingers of spring — before shotguns were fired to drive away malevolent spirits.

Although her evening passed off smoothly, it was not stress free for Sheppy’s 2025 wassail queen, Em Sibley. Drinking the cider was fine (“Oh my god, it really is good, sweet and yummy,” she said) and so was pouring it around the tree.

Trickier, however, was soaking the toast in cider without rendering it soggy and then levering it off a long fork into the tree’s branches without sending the bread pieces tumbling.

“You don’t want to muck it up — just in case,” said Ms. Sibley, an employee at Sheppy’s, alluding to the possible celestial consequences of botching a ritual meant to guarantee the crop.

“When it all does go wrong, and the harvest is down, and we haven’t got as many apples for the year as normal,” said Ms. Sibley, “you don’t want to be the one who thinks ‘oh damn: It could have been the toast!’”

Once a Christmas or New Year tradition, wassailing now typically takes place around Jan. 18 or later.

The ceremonies have evolved over time, according to Ronald Hutton, a professor of history at the University of Bristol, who dates the first recorded wassails to the 13th century, when a large wooden bowl with alcohol was passed around by friends standing in a circle.

Someone would drink and call “waes hael” — be well — and the others would chorus back “drinc hael” or drink well, he said, adding that this could descend into a medieval drinking game.

“You’d carry on passing the wassail bowl from hand to hand and taking a slurp until either the host decided enough was enough — or people gradually keeled over and the winner was left standing,” said Professor Hutton, author of a book on English folklore.

By the 16th century, the link to agriculture was established, with farmers singing to and blessing bee hives, fruit trees, crops, sheep and cattle to encourage a bountiful harvest.

Interest in wassailing ebbed in the last century, said Professor Hutton, “with the growth of horticulture and fertilizers, a better knowledge of how trees and farms work, and a decline in the belief that singing to your trees or fields actually does any good.”

As he prepared to put on his multicolored costume, Mike Highfield, 64, a Morris dancer and master of ceremonies at Sheppy’s, where he gives visitor tours, welcomed the resurgence.

“We should celebrate our culture because cider really was the wine of England at one stage,” Mr. Highfield said, adding that the night brings people together over a beverage that, apart from its low alcohol version, typically ranges in strength from 4 percent to 7.5 percent alcohol.

“Once you let your hair down and scream at an apple tree — and you shout and you sing — you start to talk to people because you lose some of your inhibitions,” he said.

One spectator, Matthew Mudge, 62, a church musician from Cardiff, Wales, said he had wanted to attend a wassail for decades. “It’s a fantastic tradition. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get here,” Mr. Mudge said as he enjoyed a cider after the ceremony, adding, “All wassails involve drinking and perhaps that’s why they’ve lived for six centuries.”

In the village of Midsomer Norton, about 50 miles away, 100 people or so turned out for a community event to wassail three small apple trees in the local park. Instead of a queen, local children helped place pieces of toast in the branches. Trevor Hughes, 70, a Morris dancer, who conducted the ceremony, said the tradition had never disappeared here.

“We have always done wassails at this time of year. It may not have been advertised, there may have been just local village events, but it never really died,” he said. Lately, he added “there has been an explosion of wassails because it’s a simple means of having a laugh.”

While the fun of wassailing is irrefutable, does anyone really think it protects the crop?

“The rationalist in me says ‘of course not, how could it,’” said Professor Hutton, who spends a Sunday afternoon each January with friends in his garden, singing to his trees over a few drinks.

He noted, however, that his apple tree “never bore anything until I ‘wassailed’ it the first time.” adding: “It has borne bumper crops every year since.”