Gloucestershire Wassail facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Gloucestershire Wassail |
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Other name | Wassail! Wassail! All Over the Town The Wassailing Bowl Wassail Song |
Genre | Christmas carol |
Text | Traditional |
Language | English |
Based on | Traditional English carol |
The Gloucestershire Wassail, also known as "Wassail! Wassail! All Over the Town", "The Wassailing Bowl" and "Wassail Song" is an English Christmas carol from the county of Gloucestershire in England, dating back to at least the 18th century, but may be older.
The author of the lyrics and the composer of the music are unknown. The first known publication of the song's current version was in 1928 in the Oxford Book of Carols; however, earlier versions of the song had been published, including, but not limited to, publications in 1838, 1857, and 1868 by William Chappell, Robert Bell, and William Henry Husk respectively. Husk's 1868 publication contained a reference to it being sung by wassailers in the 1790s in Gloucestershire. "Gloucestershire Wassail" has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 209.
Recordings
The folklorist James Madison Carpenter made several audio recordings of the song in Gloucestershire in the early 1930s, which can be heard online via the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library website. Many other audio recordings were made of Gloucestershire residents singing wassailing songs in the second half of the twentieth century.
The American musical group Mannheim Steamroller did an instrumental cover of the song titled "Wassail, Wassail" on their popular 1984 album Christmas. American early music group Waverly Consort recorded and released the song on their 1994 album "A Waverly Consort Christmas".
Canadian folk/world music singer/composer Loreena McKennitt released the song on her 2008 Christmas album A Midwinter Night's Dream.
Lyrics
Below are the ten present-day, most commonly heard stanzas of lyrics, as originally published in the Oxford Book of Carols. Note the first stanza is also the chorus. It is traditionally sung at the beginning of the song and after each stanza, or some variation thereof:
Wassail! wassail! all over the town,
Here's to our horse, and to his right ear,
So here is to Cherry and to his right cheek
Here's to our mare, and to her right eye,
So here is to Broad Mary and to her broad horn |
And here is to Fillpail and to her left ear
Here's to our cow, and to her long tail,
Come butler, come fill us a bowl of the best
Be here any maids? I suppose here be some;
Then here's to the maid in the lily white smock |