The songs:
1. The Kentucky Wassail Song, sung (and written?) by John Jacob Niles
2. Clementsing, sung by Coope, Boyes, Simpson et al.
3. Sugar Wassail, sung by Waterson:Carthy et al.
Wassailing songs as a class are probably among the most ancient of all the music we associate with Christmastime. However, the lyrics and melodies of individual songs are the product of constant evolution. Even the wassail songs that we consider to be the most authentic are musically more reflective of the 18th and 19th centuries than they are of their ancient roots. That is because the songs were in a constant state of change and innovation. The tradition was that personalized songs would be adapted or improvised for the people and households that were being visited. The old wassails that have been documented are just snapshots - frozen moments in time
English wassail songs are the regional variant of ancient rituals that are found throughout Europe (and arguably, throughout the whole world because these customs fill a need that arises in communities everywhere.) Folklorists generically call these luck-visit rituals. A cynic might call them a socially acceptable form of begging. Another way of looking at it is that it is a fair exchange of services for goods that has become ceremony.
At one time, luck-visits filled a pressing need to assist people in real hardship. But even when there isn’t hardship the customs continued anyway. As Martin Carthy describes it: “people perform old ceremonies simply because it is time to do so. ... The community may struggle to provide a meaning for a particular ceremony or make any sense at all of the routine of the thing but that does not matter. What matters is the moment: the reason is the moment.”
All three of these wassail songs have roots in England, although the first one, The Kentucky Wassail Song performed here by John Jacob Niles, is set in that American state. Niles recorded the song on an EP 45 rpm vinyl called The Folk Songs of Christmas Vol. 1, released in 1955.
Did he collect this song as part of his folkloric research in the Southern Appalacian mountains? Or did he write it in the style of wassails he heard there (because wassail songs were traditionally written or adapted to suit the occasion)? Or is it some of each? Perhaps we will never know. A lot of Niles’ songs are like that. His objective was to keep traditional music alive, not to preserve it.
Luck-visit songs can migrate from one holiday to another. Clementsing, the second song, was recorded by Barry Coope, Jim Boyes, Lester Simpson, Fi Fraser, Jo Freya and Georgina Boyes on their 2011 album Fire and Sleet and Candlelight. (I couldn’t find a photo of all of them together.) This song originated as a luck-visit song for St Clement’s Day (Nov 23) the patron saint of smiths and metalworkers. The legends and and feast day for that saint just happen to coincide with those of the mythic Saxon metalworking demigod Wayland the Smith. Just a coincidence?
The custom for St, Clement’s day in medieval times had been a holiday and luck-visit occasion for smiths and other metalworkers, but by the 19th century the custom had evolved to being an occasion for luck-visits by children (rather like a forerunner to Halloween trick or treating.) These lyrics were written down by a boy from Walton on Trent, Derbyshire, in 1886. Since there was no music to go with the words, Lester and Jim set them to this traditional tune.
Sugar Wassail is from a collection of such songs that were being sung in Sussex in the 1840s that were documented by the pioneering folklore collector Rev. John Broadwood. This track is from Holy Heathen and the Old Green Man, recorded in 2006 by the renowned multigenerational folk group Waterson:Carthy. Their roots go back to one of the most celebrated groups of the 1960s folk revival in Britain, The Watersons. Here they are joined by The Devil’s Interval, comprised of Jim Causley, Emily Portman and Lauren McCormick.
The wassail song didn’t have a title so Waterson:Carthy (Eliza and her father Martin Carthy, Tim van Eyken, and the family’s legendary matriarch Norma Waterson) began calling it Sugar Wassail. Norma died in January of this year; the world has lost a musical treasure, and by all accounts a wonderful human being.
Dec 8 Three wassail songs