2-969-708 - /Heritage Images

The Twelfth-Night Wassail-Bowl, 1856. 17th century scene: peasants visiting the lord and lady of the manor at Christmas. '...the bowl was filled with spiced wine, and carried to the houses of the gentry and others, from whom was expected a hospitable reception, and calling their bowl Wassail, to "drink wassail" to their entertainers. "These merry sounds of mirth and music are not extinct. There are still places wherein the wandering blower of a clarinet and the poor scraper of as poor a fiddle will this evening strain their instruments to charm forth the rustic from his dwelling, and drink to him from a jug of warm ale spiced with a race of ginger, in the hope of pittance for their melody and their wish of wassail" [William Hone].' From "Illustrated London News", 1856.