I enjoy going to traditional events that celebrate the changing of the seasons that often have Pagan origins, so I was delighted when my humans got tickets to attend the Barley Wood Wassail. As the event involves consuming cider we booked a room for the night at Barley Wood House, which is just across the road from Barley Wood Cider, so very convenient.

The route to the wassail from the house was illuminated with lanterns and it all felt very atmospheric.

We arrived quite early; the first 100 humans were given free cans of Barley Wood cider. The moon up above contributed to the ambience.

The wassail was being held in the Barley Wood Cider Orchard. A wassail is a traditional folk ceremony to encourage the apple trees to produce a good harvest

There were a few food stalls at the wassail event, and as I was feeling a wee bit peckish I decided to have a hot dog from ‘Fat snags’. It was very yummy and there was enough for my human to have some too!

Before and after the wassail ceremony we were entertained by a live band and fire dancers. I kept well away from the fire dancers, and was quite worried when the male dancer started to actually eat fire! He looked a bit sooty in places but seemed to be fine.

Here is a short video of me jigging about to the band….

It was a cold breezy evening so the fire pits that were placed all around were very welcome.

When it was time for the wassail a well known poet, Martin Maudsley, led everyone down to the orchards to the apple trees. My human thought she had recorded me with Martin, but unfortunately the camera was not set up right, but she managed to salvage the image of us below:

A Wassail King and Queen were selected by throwing apples into the crowd, and the people catching them became the King & Queen.

The Wassail Queen had to get up into the tree to hang up toast soaked in cider.

We sang various wassaling songs to encourage the tree to have a good harvest in the coming year. I got rather excited about everything and my hat fell off – see the video clip below.

Cider was poured around the roots of the tree, then the bowl was passed around for everyone to drink from.

We moved away from the tree to a fire circle for more rituals. Humans jumped into the ring, made a wish for the coming year, then jumped out again. Various wishes were made, including quite a few wanting peace for the world.

My human waited for the flames to die down before jumping into the middle with me. Like many others, we wished for world peace in 2026.

It was a wonderful event and is quite a famous wassail. A few years ago Barley Wood Wassial was written about in National Geographic magazine. See the link below to read the article

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/wassailing-cider-tradition-somerset-england

Horace the Alresford Bear 26/1/26