Where can we begin better than with New Year’s Day and the ancient custom of the wassail? New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day were anciently, and still are to some extent, celebrated with various observances; presents and good wishes for the coming year were freely exchanged, and sometimes the lasses and lads would pay their neighbours the compliment of singing a carol to bury the old and usher in the glad new year. But more generally the practice was observed of a {234} crowd of youths and maidens entering their friends’ houses in the first hours of New Year’s Day, bearing with them the wassail-bowl of spiced ale, and singing verses appropriate to the occasion. The origin of the name wassail and of the ceremonies connected with it, is well known and better authenticated than that of most of our ancient customs. Rowena, the daughter of Hengist, on being presented to Vortigern at a feast which her father had prepared for him, kneeled before him and offered him a bowl with the words “Louerd king wœs hœil,” that is, “Lord King, your health.” Vortigern is represented in _Layamon’s Brut_ as not understanding the phrase— The King Vortigerne Haxede his cnihtes What were the speche That the mayde speke. The answer is— Hit is the wone (_wont_) Ine Saxe-londe, That freond saith to his freond, Wan he sal drink “Leofue (_dear_) freond wassail,” The other saith “drinc hail.” Old Geoffrey of Monmouth, after relating the legend, remarks that from that time down to his own day it had been the custom in Britain for one who drinks to another to say, “Wacht heil!” and for that other who pledges him in return, to answer, “Drink heil!” The word wassail, from being used to signify a pledge or greeting, in time came to denote feasting in general, and in the phrase, “wassail-bowl,” to con-note the particular liquor, spiced ale, with which the bowl was filled. Milner, in a dissertation on an ancient cup, supposed to be a wassail-cup, inserted in the eleventh volume of the _Archæologia_, states that the introduction of Christianity amongst our ancestors did not at all interfere with the practice of wassailing. On the contrary, the custom began to assume a sort of religious aspect; and the wassail-bowl itself, which in great monasteries was placed on the Abbot’s table, at the upper end of the refectory, to be circulated amongst the community at his discretion, received the honourable appellation of _Poculum Caritatis_. The wassail-bowl is probably the original of the Grace Cup and Loving Cup. {235}