Wassailing
The practice of singing carols, both of a religious petition or of celebration, is descended from the pagan practice known as wassailing in some cultures, Yule singing in others, and caroling in yet others. The practice emerged as part of the winter solstice celebrations in varying pagan cultures, seemingly spontaneously, including ancient Greece, Georgia, the British Isles, and the Nordic cultures. Wassailing was the gathering of singers who sang songs of petition, either for gifts from the wealthier landowners or to the gods for the purpose of receiving a good harvest in the coming year, from both the fields and the orchards and vineyards.
Initially, the practice was associated with rowdy behavior, as groups of young men, well-fortified by strong beverages, would enter the houses of the wealthy singing songs demanding gifts, usually more of the same strong beverages. The songs included the threat of remaining on the property until the requisite gift was bestowed. Householders who did not comply were subject to reprisals, which included damage to their property, although violence was relatively rare in the northern climes. Wassailing was part of the Nordic Yule festival, where the songs were prescribed by tradition, and many were recorded in the sagas.
By the middle ages, the practice of wassailing was part of the Christmas celebration, though the pagan songs were in most cases replaced with less religious-oriented songs. The wassail was usually part of the Twelfth Night celebrations, and feudal lords and ladies were wassailed with requests for food and drink. The lords responded with gifts, and the practice of wassailing became little more than a form of begging, though one which was accepted as part of the winter solstice and later the Christmas season. Wassailing was thus another formerly pagan practice which was absorbed into the Christian celebration of Christmas when it was decided that Christmas was December 25.
Another form of wassailing was a pagan practice during the celebration of the winter solstice in which orchards, fields, and vineyards were visited by wassailers. The songs sung in the orchards and fields were to the gods of the earth and harvests, of thanks for the harvest of the preceding season and of petition for harvests of the coming year. By the sixteenth century in England, the orchard wassail included the leaving of bread at the base of trees or hanging in their branches, and the oldest tree in the orchard, which from pagan times was believed to be the spot where the orchard’s spirit resided, was given the last of the cider which the men consumed as they moved among the trees.
Throughout the pagan world, the belief in spirits both good and evil prevailed, and the failures of crops and other misfortunes were blamed on the evil spirits which came with the darkness. The winter solstice was a time when the sun began its return for the coming year, and encouraged by its presence following the solstice, evil spirits were believed to be driven off by the singing of songs which evoked the gods, with the singers further fortified by spirits of another nature. Such songs were a part of all of the winter solstice celebrations of the pagan world, and became a part of the Christian tradition when the Christmas season was set during the solstice.