Wassail! Wassail! All over the town

What is Wassailing?

Find out about the origin of the word, the traditions involved, and the food and drink associated with this old English custom which: "... involves lively and noisy festivities involving the drinking of plentiful amounts of alcohol; revelry."

(From The Oxford Dictionary of English (2nd edition revised) in English Dictionaries & Thesauruses)

Wassail! wassail! all over the town,
Our toast it is white and our ale it is brown;
Our bowl it is made of the white maple tree;

Oxford Reference is available as one of our databases in Portal. It provides a reference library covering a huge range of topics: art, languages, science, technical and medical dictionaries, quotations, religion, finance, statistics, folklore, religion and much more...