Photos & text by Philip Joyce.

The 2026 Wassail – Marston, Oxford.

Wassailing is a traditional English folk custom, especially associated with rural areas like Somerset and Devon, dating back to medieval times. The practice usually takes place in January and involves people gathering in orchards to bless apple trees for a good harvest.

Participants sing songs, recite chants, and make loud noises—sometimes banging pots or firing shotguns—to ward off evil spirits. A wassail bowl filled with cider is shared, and offerings like toast soaked in cider are placed in the trees to attract good spirits. The ceremony blends pagan and Christian elements, celebrating community, fertility, and the hope for abundance in the coming year.

Today, wassailing survives as a lively cultural tradition with music, costumes, and festivity.

Isobel McConnan, Coordinator, Marston Forest Garden and Wassail, writes:

Wassail!

Here stands a good young apple tree

Stand fast root, stand fast bough,

Each little twig bear an apple big,

Every bough an apple now

To blow well, and to bear well and so merry let us be,

Let everyone drink up their cup

And a health to the young apple tree!

So begins the Young Apple Wassail.  On Sunday 12 January we’ll be singing heartily to the apple, pear and plum trees at the Marston community allotment and ‘mini’ orchard, pouring apple juice onto their roots and adorning them with burnt toast.  And making a racket with pots and pans, cymbals and tambourines.  Why you might well wonder?  Well, to drive out the evil spirits and bless the still-young trees. And have a good time too, coming together on a January afternoon to cheer each other, chat, eat cake and sing around the fire.

Wassails are as old as the hills, rooted in folk magic and times of poverty when there was little work on the land in winter, and begging for money saw people through.  Wassail derives from ‘waes hael’ in Old English, meaning ‘be healthy’ and is about spreading good cheer and pouring libations to the fruit trees for a good crop. Traditionally it is held on 12^th Night, or ‘old twelvy’ on 17^th January. 

Marston’s wassail is a little younger – just four years old.  We’re making our own community tradition with music and procession, Jack-in-the-Hedge and the Ivy Queen and Holly King guiding us, the Odds and Sods Morris in accompaniment.  So far, the sun has always shone!

Apples now, hat fulls, three bushel bag fulls!

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