THIS coming Friday, January 6, is widely known as the Twelfth Day of Christmas, but in some areas it is known as Twelfth Night or even Old Christmas Day, the latter dating to a time preceding Pope Gregory’s calendar changes of 1582. In some areas, tomorrow evening (December 5) was known as Twelfth Night, while in other areas, it is the night of January 6 that is known by that name. So does Twelfth Night come before or after Twelfth Day?

Perhaps the most important thing to do on Twelfth Night is to bring an end to the Christmas festivities by taking down the decorations, removing the Christmas tree and wondering what to do with all those out-of-date Christmas greetings cards.

However, there was a time, centuries ago, when January 6 was regarded as the day of Christ’s birth. Other traditions celebrate this date as the Feast of the Epiphany that is 12 days after the birth of Christ and the time that the Christ Child was introduced to public through the visit of Three Wise Kings. The word “epiphany” means manifestation or apparition and here indicates the revealing of the Holy Child to the gentiles. However, some regard it as the day the baby Jesus was baptised.

Although we refer to the occasion as the Feast of the Epiphany, it was not celebrated as a feast of the Church until AD230 and it was not introduced as a completely separate feast until AD813. There is a vast file of information on this topic, far too large and complicated to repeat here, but I found a distillation of it in my 1947 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica.

Here in Yorkshire, England, perhaps we took a different view of things. January 6 was Apple Wassailing Day, not only in the north of England, but much further afield, particularly in the apple-growing areas such as Kent, Somerset and Devonshire.

There were many variations on the method of wassailing apple trees – in some areas men went into the orchards and discharged their shot guns into the trees, while in other areas cider was either poured over the trunks or roots or mugs of cider were placed in safe parts of the trees.

Another method was to soak a cake or toast in cider and place it in a fork near the trunk.

There is no doubt this was a jolly occasion with all the atmosphere and happiness of a great party, but its main intention was to encourage the trees to produce a wonderful apple harvest later in the year. The high-point of the occasion was for the wassailers to sing a traditional song that was directed at the trees, almost as if they were people, not plants. There were many local variations but I have a copy of what is widely regarded as the oldest such song. It goes:

Here’s to thee, old apple tree,

Whence thou mayst bud, and whence thou mayst blow,

Whence thou mayst bear apples enow!

Hats full, caps full,

Three score bushels full!

And my pockets full too!

Huzza, huzza, huzza!

My sources do not tell me whether this influenced the trees in any way, but the people had a good time with music, singing and dancing, not to mention a few drinks of last year’s cider. While we may not have had many commercial apple orchards in the north in bygone times, the celebrations of the Epiphany were widely regarded as the most festive of all the others enjoyed in the north during the Twelve Days of Christmas.

Nonetheless, in some parts of Yorkshire, apple trees were wassailed on New Year’s Day, January 1. It involved a great deal of singing, dancing, feasting and drinking with ale being dashed upon the trees to ensure a good crop in the autumn.

A wassail bowl, sometimes called a vessel bowl, was filled with hot ale with an apple floating in it and it was passed around the merrymakers for them to take a sip, with any residue being splashed upon the apple trees. It seems these celebration were not restricted to a particular time of year but mainly occurred in the autumn.

However, some happened around Christmas or the Epiphany and it seems some were marked with large bonfires.

Just across our borders near Brough, the celebrations of today were marked by a burning holly bush being carried through the town. As the tree blazed, youths would try to remove a blazing twig and carry it into one of the town’s inns. The successful ones were rewarded with free beer but the purpose and origin of this curious custom have been lost.

Oddly enough, it was sometimes believed here in the north that an east wind on January 6 heralded full fruit baskets next autumn.