To carol or to wassail?

'Tis the season to go a-caroling.

The custom of going door-to-door singing to one's neighbors harkens back at least as far as the Medieval Period, though no doubt a medieval person transported to our era would have trouble recognizing the tradition.

Leaving aside the detail that few people in our modern era actually go singing door-to-door and much prefer to have carolers come to them via TV, radio, CD or iTunes, a medieval person would have called our caroling activity "wassailing." The original "Here we go a-wassailing," song was changed to "a-caroling" because few modern people know what wassailing is. That's not surprising considering the multifaceted connotations of the word "wassail."

As a noun, wassail is an alcoholic beverage. Though recipes vary, it generally consists of cider or ale mulled with spices, sugar, roasted apples and perhaps eggs and curdled cream.

As an adjective preceding "bowl," wassail is a large, two-handled receptacle filled with wassail (the noun). The bowl might be made of pewter or carved from a hard wood.

As a salutation or greeting, wassail reverts to its Anglo-Saxon origin "Wæs þu hæl!" – "be thou hale," i.e., "be in good health." The appropriate response is "Drinc hæl" meaning "drink and be healthy." Eventually, this salutation became associated more specifically with drinking and "Wassail! / Drink hale!" became a toast.

As a verb, wassail refers to a ritualized exchange between a feudal lord and the peasants on his manor. It generally took place on Jan. 6, variously called Twelfth Night, the feast of the Epiphany or Three Kings Day. A group of peasants would bring their bowl of wassail to the manor, singing songs as they came. The lords and nobles would dip toasted bread into the warm beverage and allow it to absorb the flavors before eating it. Or they would simply pass the bowl around and take turns drinking from it while being entertained by the wassailers.

According to an unwritten pact, in exchange for their wassail and goodwill wishes, the wassailers could expect food and drink and perhaps even coins from their lord and lady.

Though there are a variety of wassailing songs and some have numerous verses, the ones passed down to us speak sentiments of "love and joy come to you... God bless you and send you a Happy New Year." Some proclaim, "Our wassail cup is made / Of the rosemary tree." Some insist on the special relationship between the lord and his vassals: "We are not daily beggars / That beg from door to door, / But we are neighbour's children, / Whom you have seen before."

The wassailing song we are most familiar with makes plain the lord and lady's part of the pact: "...bring us a glass of beer, / And better we shall sing." And more explicitly, "Bring us out a table / And spread it with a cloth; / "Bring us out a mouldy cheese, and some of your Christmas loaf." And even more boldly: "We have got a little purse / Of stretching leather skin; / We want a little of your money / to line it well within."

Presumably having received what they came for, the peasants conclude the ritual with another blessing: "God bless the master of this house / Likewise the mistress too, / And all the little children / that round the table go."

Another wassailing song comes down to us as "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." It begins with the traditional well-wishing and blessings: "We wish you a merry Christmas... / And a happy New Year... Good tidings we bring / to you and your kin..." Often, in our century, those two verses are the only ones sung. The subsequent verse has little meaning today, but it betrays its earlier origins by requesting food as an exchange: "Oh bring us a figgy pudding." The next, more insistent verse -- "We won't go until we get some" – reveals another meaning of the verb "wassail."

As towns gained ascendancy and peasants and lords made room for upper- and lower-class city dwellers, wassailing around the neighborhood became more boisterous and more demanding. It developed somewhat the nature of the modern Halloween trick or treating. "Wassail" took on negative connotations and became a word meaning a drunken revelry.

Nevertheless, if our modern age has primarily lost the various meanings of "wassail," it has retained the best parts: Good health to you! We wish you a Merry Christmas. God bless you and send you a Happy New Year.