This pagan tradition is still alive in England—and you can join

As I prepare to jump through the ring of fire, I glance anxiously at the flames dancing around my feet. Did I misread the memo? I thought I was here to drink cider and sing folk songs, not to fling myself across a flaming inferno. “Leap,” bellows the master of ceremonies, “LEAP!” And so, I leap. Breaching the flames and landing in the safety of the candlelit orchard, I’m vaguely aware of the young child next to me shouting “burn, baby, burn” with menacing glee.

The temperature is below zero at Barley Wood Cider in Wrington, north Somerset, where the annual wassail is underway. This ancient winter folk ceremony, traditionally held in orchards across the UK’s cider-making regions, marks the end of the apple harvest and offers a blessing to the start of the new growing season. With colourful costumes, firelit processions, singing and plenty of cider, it’s an evening of joyfulness in the gloomiest months. Wassails were historically held on the 12th night after Christmas, but this tradition has diminished and ceremonies now tend to take place from January into February.

It’s early evening and people are huddled around a dozen campfires, talking and laughing while clutching mugs of cider. Above, the night sky is a blanket of wintry darkness but the evening is warmed by the dancing light of the flames and the glow of lanterns hanging from trees in the courtyard. Everyone has come prepared for the cold and I notice a wave of colourful bobble hats and thick winter coats around me.

Eager for my own mug of cider, I search for the bar. A few children dance around to lively folk music from a three-piece band and I can’t help but skip along with them. Drinks are being served at the entrance to a large log-built roundhouse. This is where the cider is made. I peek inside and spy giant wooden barrels and the silhouette of a century-old wooden apple press, now dormant after a busy season. Similar in appearance to a large rustic accordion, it squeezes the apples from the surrounding orchards to a pulp between its bellows and the juice is harvested to make cider.

I catch Joel Jenkins, co-owner of Barley Wood Cider, for a chat at the busy bar. “We’ve been astounded by the turnout,” he says with a look of wild bewilderment. “It’s great to get the community together to celebrate and toast the orchards.”

In recent years, wassails have become increasingly popular in regions across the UK with historic links to cider production, such as Somerset in the South West, Herefordshire in the West Midlands and Kent in the South East. According to Elizabeth Pimblett, director of the Museum of Cider in Hereford, this is largely thanks to the revival of craft cider-making at places like Barley Wood. “After 19th-century urbanisation and the World Wars left rural populations depleted, the wassail tradition had dwindled almost to extinction. But, in the last two decades, a rise in small-scale cider-making has led to a wassail reawakening. Communities are once again coming together to celebrate life, the New Year and to enjoy the wonderful cider of the local region.”

Wassails come in many shapes and sizes, each incorporating different traditions and historic rituals: from large events such as that held each January by well-known cider producer Sheppy’s near Taunton, Somerset, which is advertised online, to small events in rural communities across the country where word of mouth may be the only way to secure an invitation. “It’s impossible to know how many wassails take place each year, but it’s a lot,” says Elizabeth.

The high turnout at tonight’s wassail is testimony to this rise in popularity. “Tickets sold out within two days,” Joel tells me. “Some have travelled from as far as London to be here.” The wassail at Barley Wood has been running for at least 10 years and Joel and his colleagues decided to keep it going when they took on the orchard in 2023.

“The ritual’s origins are pagan and based around the idea of warding off evil spirits and ensuring you have a great harvest next year,” Joel explains. “To an extent, this tradition is something we (and the previous owners) want to uphold. But the Barley Wood wassail also has a great following in the local area and further afield, and we wanted to keep it going as a community event. It’s a vibrant, engaging evening with young and old in attendance and has a really good energy. It keeps us connected with our customers, our neighbours and the land.”

He hands me a mug of cider and I follow his invitation to take a sip. I notice the softness of the apples first, swiftly followed by an almost zingy sourness that leaves a tingle on my tongue. It’s earthy and comforting.

The wassail ceremony soon gets underway. Local storyteller Martin Maudsley, bedecked in an ivy-wrapped top hat and armed with a fiddle, rouses the audience with poetry, prose and song. With passion, he explains that wassail is an Anglo-Saxon term — ‘waes hael’ — which means to be healthy, at which point he invites us to “fill our boots” for a toast, and we drink to the health of both the community and the orchard. An apple is thrown up into the air and caught by a member of the audience who’s then crowned ‘queen of the wassail’.

Torchbearers wielding long, flaming lanterns begin a procession down to the orchard and the crowd follows with nervous giggles. Procession soon becomes choir as we all join in the chorus of Martin’s blessing song, “Oh, it’s an apple tree, we have come to wassail thee, will you give some fruit to me, when the season changes?”

The mood is upbeat, merry and deliciously eccentric. “This is bonkers,” laughs a lady in the crowd behind me, and I couldn’t agree more.

As we draw to a halt, the orchard is dark and atmospheric. Apple trees surround us, extending row upon row beyond my vision. In autumn, these trees would have been laden with the apples used to make Barley Wood Cider, but now they’re leafless and dormant.

Here, ceremonial traditions are followed; the queen dips a slice of toast in apple juice and places it in the tree as an offering to the tree guardians; children bash pans and a gun is fired up into the air to ward off evil spirits; the king of the wassail skips clockwise around a tree as we sing in celebration.

With dramatic flair, our master of ceremonies sparks a ring of fire to draw the wassail to a close. Encircled by apple trees, now illuminated by flickering firelight, there’s a definite ritualistic feeling. As Martin beckons me through the flames, I follow obediently. Laughing with relief, I emerge unscathed and decide it’s probably best to make my way swiftly back to the comfort of the bar and a second mug of cider.