New Year’s Eve was observed as a convivial and cordial meeting, as it still continues in some places, and the wassail-bowl was again brought into requisition, and occasionally carried about by young women from door to door with an appropriate song. The following is given in Hone’s “Every-day Book,” vol. ii. p. 14, as a Wassail Song, sung in Gloucestershire on New Year’s Eve, in which I have taken the liberty of introducing the names of the horses, instead of cutting them out into little stars as Juliet wished Romeo to be.
Wassail Wassail ! all over the town,
Our toast it is white, our ale it is brown
Our bowl it is made of a maplin tree,
We be good fellows all; I drink to thee.
Here ‘s to Smiler, and to his right ear,
God send our Maister a happy new year;
A happy new year as e’er he did see—
‘With my wassailing bowl I drink to thee.
Here ‘s to Dobbin, and to his right eye,
God send our Mistress a good Christmas pye:
A good Christmas pye as e’er I did see—
With my wassailing bowl I drink to thee.
Here ‘s to Filpail, and to her long tail,
God send our Measter us never may fail.
Of a cup of good beer, I pray you draw near,
And then you shall hear our jolly wassail.
Be here any maids, I suppose here be some;
Sure they will not let young men stand on the cold stone,
Sing hey O maids, come trole back the pin,
And the fairest maid in the house let us all in.
Come, butler, come bring us a bowl of the best:
I hope your soul in Heaven will rest:
But if you do bring us a bowl of the small,
Then down fall butler, bowl and all.
Croker, in his “Researches,” (p. 233.) states a custom in the South of Ireland on this night of a
