"Wassail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Simon Lord Lovat is doubtless nearer the original type. In Hamlet, though there is no Denmark of the ninth century, Shakespeare has suggested the prevailing rudeness of manners quite enough for his purpose. We see it in the single combat of Hamlet's father with the elder Fortinbras, in the vulgar wassail of the king, in the English monarch being expected to hang Rosencrantz and Guildenstern out of hand merely to oblige his cousin of Denmark, in Laertes, sent to Paris to be made a gentleman of, becoming instantly capable of any the most barbarous treachery to glut his vengeance. We cannot fancy ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... Besides his black and his brown, he had a green velveteen coat, and a different-colored flowing tie for every day in the week. His habits were in complete conformity with his philosophy of extremes. He was apt to tell me when he had been sitting up all night, whether in study or what he called wassail; but I could always guess the fact from his appearance. His method of work was equally irregular, and he lived from hand to mouth. He would be idle as a forced peach on a hot-house wall (to use a simile ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... Darrell Standing, born in Minnesota and soon to die by the rope in California, surely never loved daughters of kings in the courts of kings; nor fought cutlass to cutlass on the swaying decks of ships; nor drowned in the spirit-rooms of ships, guzzling raw liquor to the wassail-shouting and death-singing of seamen, while the ship lifted and crashed on the black-toothed rocks and the water bubbled overhead, beneath, ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... bound the province, and whose hills Touch the last cloud upon the level sky: No; better men still better love their country. 'Tis the old mansion of their earliest friends, The chapel of their first and best devotions; When violence or perfidy invades, Or when unworthy lords hold wassail there, And wiser heads are drooping round its moats, At last they fix their steady and stiff eye There, there alone—stand while the trumpet blows, And view the hostile flames above its towers Spire, with a bitter and ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... little happy, and soothed in her hours of unrest by this penny legacy. Let me think as I write. (The next month's sermon, thank goodness! is safe to press.) This discourse will appear at the season when I have read that wassail-bowls make their appearance; at the season of pantomime, turkey and sausages, plum-puddings, jollifications for schoolboys; Christmas bills, and reminiscences more or less sad and sweet for elders. If we oldsters are not merry, we shall be having a semblance ...
— Some Roundabout Papers • W. M. Thackeray
... is the inventor and governor and disposer of dances and dancing.' Yet when we look into those accounts which Madame Eglentyne rendered (or did not render) to her nuns at the end of every year, we shall find payments for wassail at New Year and Twelfth Night, for May games, for bread and ale on bonfire nights, for harpers and players at Christmas, for a present to the Boy Bishop on his rounds, and perhaps for an extra pittance when the youngest schoolgirl ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... Acland informed Mr. Brand, in 1790, that at Werington, on Christmas Eve, "it was then customary for the country people to sing a wassail or drinking song, and throw the toast from the wassail-bowl to the apple-trees, in order to have ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 290 - Volume X. No. 290. Saturday, December 29, 1827. • Various
... all rose then. One saluted the other, Hrothgar Beowulf, in rhythmical measures, 95 Wishing him well, and, the wassail-hall giving To his care and keeping, quoth he departing: [24] "Not to any one else have I ever entrusted, But thee and thee only, the hall of the Danemen, Since high I could heave my hand and my buckler. 100 Take thou in charge now the noblest of houses; Be mindful of honor, exhibiting ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin
... answered Hilda, quickly turning; "such was ever the ceremony due to Saxon king, when he slept in a subject's house, ere our kinsmen the Danes introduced that unroyal wassail, which left subject and king unable to hold or to quaff cup, when the board was left ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... friends, vociferous though they were, and heated with anticipated triumphs, wine and wassail, heard the glorious din, learned its cause, and came reeling forth to embrace their puissant ally. Quitting as they did the fumes of buttocks and sirloins, gammons and hams, turkies and geese, wines, brandies, beers and tobacco, they ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... "Many a wassail-bout[7] Wore the long Winter out; Often our midnight shout Set the cocks crowing, As we the Berserk's[8] tale Measured in cups of ale, Draining the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... each, to "six poor travellers, not being rogues or proctors". It furnished the theme to the Christmas cycle of stories, The Seven Poor Travellers, the narrator, who treats the waifs and strays harboured one Christmas eve at the Charity to roast turkey, plum pudding, and "wassail", bringing up the number to seven, "being", as he says, "a traveller myself, though an idle one, and being withal as poor as ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... speak. He felt, in truth, somewhat incapable of quite incoherent speech. Not having expected any service till next day, he had foregathered with others of his ilk in the servants' bar, below-stairs, and had with wassail and good cheer very effectively ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... from Tiberias town: we arrived at Baghdad ten days ago; and, alighting at the merchants' caravanserai, we sold all our merchandise. Now a certain trader invited us to an entertainment this night; so we went to his house and he set food before us and we ate: then we sat at wine and wassail with him for an hour or so when he gave us leave to depart; and we went out from him in the shadow of the night and, being strangers, we could not find our way back to our Khan. So haply of your kindness and courtesy you will suffer us to tarry with you this night, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... evening was spent in palm-wine, rum, and wassail; one must begin by humouring Africans, under pain of being considered a churl; but the inevitable result is, that next day they will by some pretext or other shirk work to enjoy the headache. That old villain, "Young ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... was prepared by Hengist, at the which it pleased the king to be present, and appointed his daughter, when euerie man began to be somewhat merrie with drinke, to bring in a cup of gold full of good and pleasant wine, and to present it to the king, saieng; Wassail. Which she did in such comelie and decent maner, as she that knew how to doo it well inough, so as the king maruelled greatlie thereat, and not vnderstanding what she ment by that salutation, demanded what it signified. ...
— Chronicles 1 (of 6): The Historie of England 5 (of 8) - The Fift Booke of the Historie of England. • Raphael Holinshed
... the same day if possible; so that you may carry the impressions of the one fresh and active into the other. They are the two most representative buildings in the kingdom. Haddon is old English feudalism edificed. It represents the rough grandeur, hospitality, wassail and rude romance of the English nobility five hundred years ago. It was all in its glory about the time when Thomas-a-Becket the Magnificent used to entertain great companies of belted knights of the realm in a manner that exceeded regal ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... man's club is a place designed to brighten our darkened lives, and send us home, when we're halfway blind, in humor to beat our wives. So hey for the wicker demi-john and the free-lunch brand of grub! We'll wassail hold till the break of dawn, we friends of the poor man's club! It's here we barter our bits of news in our sweat stained hand-me-downs; it's here we swallow the children's shoes and the housewives hats and gowns. It's here we mortgage the ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... passion for vast conquests! "These rugged tribes, devoted to their chiefs, led by Cyrus from their herds and hunting-grounds to startle the pampered Lydians with their spare diet and clothing of skins; living on what they could get, strangers to wine and wassail, schooled in manly exercises, cleanly even to superstition, loyal to age and filial duties; with a manly pride of personal independence that held a debt the next worst thing to a lie; their fondness for social graces, their feudal dignities, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... Well! He is the true Heautontimorumenos, the self-punisher, with a jug of toast-and-water for his Christmas wassail. So far his folly is merely pitiable, but his intolerance makes it offensive. He cannot enjoy his own tipple unless he can deprive me of mine. A fox that has lost his tail. There is no tyrant like a thoroughpaced reformer. I drink to ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... from the robbers' cave he had him privily arrested and put to death—because the deceased, it is said, do not, like Baitals, tell tales. About nightfall, when he thought that the thieves, having finished their work of plunder, would meet together as usual for wassail and debauchery, he armed himself, marched out his men, and led them to the ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... and bowels which would have stowed within them all the plate on board of a galleon. If tankards and wassail-bowls had stuck between your teeth, you would not ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... snare That Prudence might escape: 730 At times both wished for and implored, At times sought with self-pointed sword, Yet still a dark and hideous close To even intolerable woes, And welcome in no shape. And, strange to say, the sons of pleasure, They who have revelled beyond measure In beauty, wassail, wine, and treasure, Die calm, or calmer, oft than he Whose heritage was Misery. 740 For he who hath in turn run through All that was beautiful and new, Hath nought to hope, and nought to leave; And, save the future, (which ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... in the proportion in which it conduces to our happiness, then we have cause to deplore the loss of the wassail-bowl, the sports and wrestlings of the town green, the evening tales, and the elegant pastimes of masque, song, and dance, of our ancestors, which the taste of our times has narrowed into a commercial channel, or pared down to a few formal visits and their ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 287, December 15, 1827 • Various
... with his doll. He fancied that as a mummer at the feast of Saturn he might earn a few drops from the wassail cup. ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... heard of thee," he said "men say thou art a prompt fellow in thy service, but too much given to brawling and to wassail to be trusted ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... wassail-bout Wore the long Winter out; Often our midnight shout Set the cocks crowing, As we the Berserk's tale Measured in cups of ale, Draining the ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... Sir Knight," he answered; "but I will wake them from their wassail." Springing from the dais lightly as a cat, he ran down the hall crying, "Air is what they need. Air!" Now coming to the door, he threw it wide open, and drawing a silver whistle from his robe, blew it long and loud. "What," he laughed, ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... Lambro pass'd unseen a private gate, And stood within his hall at eventide; Meantime the lady and her lover sate At wassail in their beauty and their pride: An ivory inlaid table spread with state Before them, and fair slaves on every side; Gems, gold, and silver, form'd the service mostly, Mother of pearl and coral the ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... the best, embroidered with gold. She bare in her hand a golden bowl, filled with wine, that was one wondrous good. High-born men led her into the hall before the king, fairest of all things! Rouwenne sate on her knee, and called to the king, and thus first she said in English land: "Lord king, wassail! for thy coming I am glad." The king this heard, and knew not what she said, the King Vortiger asked his knights soon, what were the speech that the maid spake. Then answered Keredic, a knight most admirable; ...
— Brut • Layamon
... within the old baronial banqueting hall of Percy Du Bois. The wassail had not yet begun, and there was a pause in the feast. All eyes were bent upon the travel soiled pilgrim,—for he was telling a stirring tale of the martial deeds done in Palestine. The valiant Percy bent forward his ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... Mr. Rutherford amused his declining years by teaching Charley to whistle "The king shall hae his ain again," and to gibber "Send the old rogue to Hanover;" for which he was always rewarded by a sugar-plum or a dole of wassail (Scotch short-bread). Those epicurean indulgences at length induced a state of obesity; and so depraved became the appetite of the bird, that, rejecting his natural food, he used to pluck out the feathers from those parts of the back within his reach, and bruise ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 484 - Vol. 17, No. 484, Saturday, April 9, 1831 • Various
... meaning the forbidden pleasures of wine and wassail, loose talk and tales of women's wiles, a favourite subject with the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... that now forgotten expression of good-will. Many a feud was reconciled in the clinking of glasses; just as many another was begun when the cup was drained too deeply. The first quarter of the last century saw the end of all the social glories of the wassail in this country, and though men drank as much fifty years later, all its poetry and ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... to come. The clergy are now hunted in the streets! Plunder and rapine reign! Orgies and wild wassail hold a mocking sway in the courts of death. Unsexed women, liberated thieves, and bloodthirsty tramps prey on the unwary, the wounded, or the feeble. On April 3Oth, the great fort of Issy falls into the hands of the government. Blazing shells rain, in the murky night air, down on Paris. ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... flower-beds. They had baths, and libraries, and dining-halls, fountains of quicksilver and water. City and country were full of conviviality, and of dancing to the lute and mandolin. Instead of the drunken and gluttonous wassail orgies of their Northern neighbors, the feasts of the Saracens were marked by sobriety. Wine was prohibited. The enchanting moonlight evenings of Andalusia were spent by the Moors in sequestered, fairy-like ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... altered look, And gave a squire the sign; A mighty wassail-bowl he took, And crowned it high with wine. "Now pledge me here, Lord Marmion: But first I pray thee fair, Where hast thou left that page of thine, That used to serve thy cup of wine, Whose beauty was so ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... house: "Mene, mene, tekel upharsin!" Such was the effect of these words upon the eager and excited, yet thoroughly solemnized crowd, that when the shutters were thrown open, they would hardly have been surprised to see the bar covered with golden goblets and bowls of wassail, surrounded by lordly revellers and half-nude women, with the stricken Belshazzar at the head of the feast. Certainly Belshazzar, on his night of doom, could hardly have presented a more pitiful front than Robert Belcher, as all eyes were turned upon ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... mummers cut up queer antics, servitors brought in the Boar's Head and Wassail Bowl, and finally it was announced that all present would participate in the old-fashioned dance of Sir ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... their hands after which food was set on and they ate; and the doctors arose and withdrew; but Al-Maamun forbade the stranger to depart with them and, calling him to himself, treated him with especial-favour and promised him honour and profit. Thereupon they made ready the seance of wassail; the fair-faced cup-companions came and the pure wine[FN252] went round amongst them, till the cup came to the stranger, who rose to his feet and spake thus, "If the Commander of the Faithful permit me, I will say one word." Answered the Caliph, "Say what thou wilt." Quoth ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... provided that you see our good will and will join us in this banquet." Whereupon he distributes among his guests according to the order of their standing the array of presents, after which all squat down and begin to eat, the visitors giving an extra dose of wassail to their friends in order that under its warming influence they may soften ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... home to Mizzlington from the 'Change. Having a great veneration for old customs, he buys a boar's head there and boy to carry it; next, being taken with a crockery-shop-sign, "The Little Bason" (which, by-the-bye, was a very large one), he purchases that also, thinking it will do for a wassail-bowl; likewise some holly; and an old butcher's-block to serve as the yule-log; not forgetting the last new Christmas book of sympathy and sentiment, "The Black Beetle on the Hob," a faery tale of a register-stove, ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... wassail; and lively song, long neglected in England, woke, as it wakes ever, at the breath of Joy and Fame. As if in the days of Alfred, the harp passed from hand to hand; martial and rough the strain beneath the touch of the Anglo-Dane, more refined ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... put us on board the Golden Bough. Surprising incidents. But this refusal of my new shipmate to drink with me was most surprising. Think of a sailor, a hard case, too, moping alone in his room on the day he shipped, when downstairs he could wassail away the day. I was surprised and resentful. It is hard for a nineteen-year-old man to stand alone, and I felt that Newman, my shipmate, should give me the moral ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... crown'st my glittering hearth With guiltless mirth, And giv'st me wassail bowls to drink, Spiced to ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius
... in the south of Ireland having lost a pet cat, and searched for it in vain, after four days was delighted to hear that it had returned. Hastening to welcome the truant with a wassail-bowl of warm milk in the kitchen, she observed another cat skulking with the timidity of an uninvited guest in an obscure corner. The pet cat received the caresses of its mistress with its usual pleasure, but, though it circled round ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... a reading of the "Christmas Carol," in the Music Hall at Edinburgh. His audience consisted of the members of, or subscribers to, the Philosophical Institution. At the close of the evening the Lord Provost, who had been presiding, presented to the Beader a massive and ornate silver wassail bowl. Seventeen years prior to that, Charles Dickens had been publicly entertained in Edinburgh,—Professor Wilson having been the chairman of the banquet given then in his honour. He had been at that time enrolled a burgess and guildbrother of the ancient corporation ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... the eyes of their Puritan neighbors, for were they not Episcopals, who had pancakes at Shrovetide and wassail at Christmas?—were dancing about their May-pole one summer evening, for they tried to make it May throughout the year. Some were masked like animals, and all were tricked with flowers and ribbons. Within their circle, sharing in song and jest, were the lord and lady of the revels, and an English ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... commenced a system of moral instruction in detail, which, in our local history, constitutes an era. It has been written that "where vice abounds, grace shall much more abound," and St. Mary's may now be well included in the list of favorable examples. The lordly "wassail" of the fur-trader, the long-continued dance of the gay French "habitant," the roll of the billiard-ball, the shuffle of the card, and the frequent potations of wine "when it is red in the cup," will now, at least, no longer retain ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... act Wallfried arrives with two friends at the Count's castle. All three are in pilgrim's garb and bring a beautiful wassail-horn to the Count in token of friendship from the Sire of Rodenstein. The sentry and the Count consider these pious guests harmless, and the Count, being a great amateur of good wine, drinks and sings with them and ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... by the stars the kingdom's sick; No gin to catch the state, or wring The freeborn nostril of the king, We send to you; but here a jolly Verse, crown'd with ivy and with holly, That tells of winter's tales and mirth, That milkmaids make about the hearth, Of Christmas sports, the wassail-bowl, That['s] tost up, after fox-i'-th'-hole; Of blind-man-buff, and of the care That young men have to shoe the mare; Of Twelfth-tide cakes, of peas and beans, Wherewith you make those merry scenes, Whenas ye choose your king and queen, And cry out: Hey, for our town green; Of ash-heaps, ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... his wassail cup And took the proffered bauble up, And cautiously he bit Its surface, but it would not yield, Which did convince the grand old Field It was ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... "that this shall be no revel night in this house: I am in my workday clothes, as you see, and keep fast, as I have reason, instead of holiday. You have had wassail enough for the holiday evening, for you speak thick already. If you wish more ale or wine ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... the leisurely Augustine of Cockburn drank from a tortoise-shell wassail cup to the health of an apotheosized recusant, who was his supererogatory patron, and an assistant recognizance in the immobile nomenclature of interstitial molecular phonics. The contents of the ...
— 1001 Questions and Answers on Orthography and Reading • B. A. Hathaway
... men must be far more or far less than mortal ere they can blind their eyes, and dull their senses, and forswear their nature, and obey the dreariness of the commandment; and there is little need to force the sackcloth and the serge upon us. The roses wither long before the wassail is over, and there is no magic that will make them bloom again, for there is none that renews us—youth. The Helots had their one short, joyous festival in their long year of labour; life may leave us ours. It will be surely to us, long before its close, a harder ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... Mounted Police hangin' t' m' tail till A scuttled the Boundary. Good days—rip roaring days for the makin' of strong men! We were none o' y'r cold blooded reptile calculatin' kind! May we fight valiant for God now as we wrestled for the Devil then! Oh, to be young again an' not spill life in wassail! to give the blows for right instead of wrong! Man, what a view y' have here—what a view! Minds me of the days A was ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... is the prickly, red-berried holly? Where, too, the mistletoe with its pearly berries? And where, most of all, queries your enforced member of a Blue Ribbon Army—where is the Wassail Bowl? ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... faith may accomplish; the familiar representation of Saint Elizabeth of Thuringia meekly displaying the contents of her apron before her lord, the Landgrave—that heavy, sporadic type of whiskered ass whose only mission in life seems to be that of pulling the stars and all else down about his wassail-soaked head and ears through sheer avoirdupois and stupidity. Padre Antonio experienced a sudden thrill as he gazed at the picture. Clearly, it was the hand of God directing him. So did Saint Elizabeth deliberately deny the truth, and yet the bread in her apron ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... dew lies heavy, and its gems Stud the luxuriant, grassy stems. The happy night with wassail rings; So feasted here the ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... arms— "Not Death, for she is still a fruitful wife, "Her spouse the Dead, and their cold marriage yields "A million children, born of mould'ring flesh— "So Death and Flesh live on—immortal they! "I mean the blank-ey'd queen whose wassail bowl "Is brimm'd from Lethe, and whose porch is red "With poppies, as it waits the panting soul— "She, she alone is great! No scepter'd slave "Bowing to blind creative giants, she; "No forces seize ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... up regularly for the night, the "Lady Anastasia" withdrew, followed by Dinah; and I would hear, later, sounds of festivity, in which her well-known laugh was blended, in the dining-room below, where, with Bainrothe and his friends, she held wassail, frequently, until after midnight. The groans of Mrs. Clayton would then commence, and, with little intermission, last until ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... day to give up the bulk of my store of hard-wrung coin to the relief of this Ada Lowery. But I swore to myself that Tripp's whiskey dollar would not be forthcoming. He might play knight-errant at my expense, but he would indulge in no wassail afterward, commemorating my weakness and gullibility. In a kind of chilly anger I put on ...
— Options • O. Henry
... the raised dais, on which in ancient times the host and his guests used to spread their table, while a descent of a couple of steps led to the lower part of the hall, where the vassals and retainers held wassail. The floor was uncovered by any sort of carpet, but a layer of rushes had been scattered over it by my direction. In the whole room there was nothing to remind one of the nineteenth century; except, indeed, my ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... out from the world, locked in with the sea,—no neighbors, no visitors, no news, no gossip,—solitary, shady, cool, and quiet,—surely I can rest here. Forked tongues of scandal can not penetrate through those rock-ribbed hills yonder, nor dart across that defying sea; and neither wail nor wassail of men or women can disturb me more. But how do I know that it will not prove a mocking cheat like Baiae and Maggiore, or Copais and Cromarty? I have fled in disgust and ennui from far lovelier spots than this, and what right have I to suppose ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... wassail bowls About the streets are singing; The boys are come to catch the owls; The wild mare in is bringing; Our kitchen-boy hath broke his box; And to the dealing of the ox Our honest neighbours come by flocks, And here they will ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... Tims' With generous tea and lots of pillows, And of all girls the first, the best To play at youth with this old fossil; Then Isis, as we glide to rest Upon thy shadow-dappled breast, We'll pledge thee in a generous wassail. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various
... their cousin, L. Junius Brutus, they found the king at war with the Rutulians of Ardea. Being unable to take the place by storm, he was forced to blockade it; and while the Roman army was encamped before the town the young men used to amuse themselves at night with wine and wassail. One night there was a feast, at which Sextus, the king's third son, was present, as also Collatinus, the son of Egerius, the king's uncle, who had been made governor of Collatia. So they soon began to dispute about the worthiness of their ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... Christian and was baptised, and when he returned to Greenland he took priests with him who converted many people, though old Eric, it is said, preferred to go in the way of his fathers, and deemed boisterous Valhalla, with its cups of wassail, a place of better cheer than the New Jerusalem, with its streets ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... and the wassail-bowl passed round till boisterous mirth drowned oftentimes the minstrel's song, but Ederyn missed no word. Scarce knowing what he did, he crept so close he found himself with upturned face ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Cornwall, in England, the farmers and peasantry "salute the apple-trees on Christmas Eve," and in Sussex they used to "worsle," i.e. "wassail," the apple-trees and chant verses to them in somewhat of ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... the brothers were far from content with such home-made liquors for their own drinking, but imported from England and the Netherlands and Spain great stores of ale and rum and wines, and held therewith high wassail with some choice and kindred ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... was drunk at weddings, sometimes within the bridal chamber; but not with noisy revelry, as in old England. A psalm preceding and a prayer following a Puritan posset-pot made a satisfactorily solemn wassail. Bride-cake and bride-gloves were sent as gifts to the friends and relatives of the contracting parties. Other and ruder English fashions obtained. The garter of the bride was sometimes scrambled for to bring luck and speedy marriage to the garter-winner. In Marblehead the bridesmaids ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... with success, encamped that night in the woods not far from Marlborough, and kept the forest awake with the uproar of their barbarian wassail. The colonists immediately assembled a small band of brave men, fell upon them by surprise in the midst of their carousals, shot ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott |
