Hundreds gathered at The Museum in the Park on Saturday afternoon to welcome back Stroud Wassail.
Previously, the wassail was an incredibly popular event featuring traditional music and dance and was centred around the Subscription Rooms, but the last Stroud Wassail was held in 2020 and in subsequent years fell victim to the global pandemic.
Saturday’s wassail marked a glorious return and opened with dancing from Miserden Morris, followed by Styx of Stroud and Merrie Morgana.
The event was officially opened by Robin Burton, who introduced singer-songwriter Johnny Coppin who performed gallantly despite a sudden downpour.
A barrel of beer, supplied by Fresh Standard Brew Company, who had a stall at the event, was later put ‘on trial’ – and ultimately found not guilty.
The Cryptids performed in the museum’s courtyard before The New Gloucester Play was performed – a modern mummer’s play, which brought the afternoon to a close.
Abigail Large, Events and Exhibitions Officer at The Museum in the Park said: “It’s great to host amazing community events like this – it’s all about wishing each other good health, good cheer, and it has been great fun.
“I think the last one was in January 2020 – and we all know what happened in 2020 – so there has been quite a long gap so it’s great to have it back.”
Stephen Rowley told Stroud Times: “The Stroud Wassail event was founded as part of the Single Gloucester project. This cultural heritage project aimed to publish all of the folk songs and tunes from Gloucestershire in an online archive. www.glostrad.org
“The Stroud area plays an interesting role in the C20/21st history of the wassail singing.
“The late C19th, early C20th, was an important era in our folk culture. Inspired by luminaries like Cecil Sharp and Lucy Broadwood, there was a movement to capture what remained of a dying folk music and song tradition. People like Ralph Vaughan Williams and Percy Grainger toured the countryside collecting folk songs.
“Wassailing has origins in a middle English salutation ‘waes thu hal’. This is to wish the recipient good health. It is the also the origin of our traditional toast ‘Here’s to your health’.
“It developed in the late medieval times to become a feature of New Year and Twelfth Night celebrations to pass a wassail cup around the room, for each person to wassail his neighbour. It was particularly popular in Tudor times. Stroud museum has some fine wooden wassail cups.
“Around this time it became a popular to go house visiting on Twelfth Night, taking a wassail cup or bowl and wassail your neighbours to wish them a healthy and prosperous new year.
“Since the C16th there have been songs that mention wassail, there were probably sung at Twelfth Night revels, the final party of the Christmas season, but they soon became part of the house visiting tradition.
“By Victorian times it became a ‘cadging’ tradition. Wassailers would travel from house to house, sing their song and be rewarded with coins, or perhaps even cakes and ale. It can be seen to be a related custom to carol singing. Wassailing generally happened on 12th night, but in some places the whole period from New Years Eve to 12th night was fair game.
“The southern part of Gloucestershire proved very rich in wassail songs of a particular kind. Especially around Stroud. These songs, rather than just wishing the neighbour a healthy and prosperous new year, would include a verse specific to the recipient’s enterprise. There were verses for pig keepers, shepherds, arable, dairy and beef farmers. Wassailers in Nailsworth even wrote a verse for a mill-owner.
“When the song collecting was going on in the early C20th, the wassail tradition in this area was still in full swing and we have accounts from several wassailers of their activities. They visited houses and pubs.”
https://glostrad.com/wassail-song-stroud/
Pictures by Matt Bigwood
