Wassail!

LAST year's apple crop pipped all the records: boughs groaned under the weight of ripe fruit and growers declared it the best season for decades.

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The abundance was credited to a frost-free spring and a warm summer, but perhaps there was another reason for the bumper harvest: the rise of the curious tradition of wassailing.

Often associated with a form of carol singing, midwinter wassailing is in fact a deeply rooted tradition that involves anointing an apple tree with cider and making a good deal of noise. At its core, it is a ritual to encourage a good apple harvest later in the year. It's both reverent and uproarious and, in bringing people together outdoors, is just the thing to raise the spirits on a dark January night.

Gatherings to bless apple trees have seen a revival in recent years, surprising even those committed to the tradition, such as Morris man Bill Taylor, who has led a wassailing ceremony in Gloucestershire since the 1990s. 'It began with a few dozen folk gathering in a farmer's orchard and now there are up to 200 people wanting to take part,' he explains. 'Nobody is invited, it's all word of mouth.'

Down in Somerset, numbers attending the wassail at Barley Wood Cider in Wrington are capped at 300, but those wanting to attend this ticketed event easily surpass 500, according to Martin Maudsley, a Dorset-based storyteller and author of the book Telling the Seasons. He acts as master of ceremonies for West Country wassails and is now in demand from early January to the first week of February. The traditional date for apple-tree wassailing is Old Twelfth Night, January 17, although, like all folk customs, it can be adapted by local communities.