Wassails are fairly common place across the UK; indeed it could be claimed to be the most vibrant and growing custom. Thistleton-Dwyer notes in his 1911 British Popular Customs Present and Past that:
“At Kingsbridge and Salcombe it was formerly customary for the ciderist, attended by his workmen with a large can or pitcher of cider, guns charged with powder, &c., to repair to the orchard, and there at the foot of one of the best-bearing apple-trees.”
He records that a toast was read three times and the fire arms were charged at the end. The rhyme is a fairly familiar one:
“Here’s to thee, old apple tree,
Whence thou may’st bud,
And whence thou may’st blow!
And whence thou may’st bear apples enow!
Hats full! caps full!
Bushel—bushel-sacks full!
And my pockets full too! Huzza!”
He records a unusual conclusion to the custom which suggests a hybridisation with Lord of Misrule customs:
“The pitcher being emptied, they returned to the house, the doors of which they were certain to find bolted by the females; who, however bad the weather might be, were inexorable to all entreaties to open them, till some one had divined what was on the spit.”
He concludes:
“This was generally not easily thought of, and if edible was the reward of him who first named it. The party were then admitted.”
When the custom died out is unclear but it was certainly still current in the 1800s.
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