The question for today’s blog has got to be ‘are you going a wassailing?’

Traditionally this event takes place on old twelfth night, 17^th January, but any time between Christmas and mid-January is good. It seems to involve lots of dressing up, shouting, processioning and cider-soaked toast that you stick on the branches of the tree itself. The role of a wassail is to wake up the apple trees in local orchards and protect them from bad spirits. Its origin goes back to Anglo Saxon chants of 'wes hal, was haille, wase hail'-to be in good health and good fortune. It all sounds like a fabulous tradition that celebrates the middle of winter moving into spring and all the beauty that is to come. Although I feel that the Devon chant (below) may be referencing the financial benefits rather than the aesthetic ones.

Devon Chant

Here’s to thee old apple tree
long may ee bud
and long may ee blow
long may ee bear apples enow.

Hats full, caps full
bushel sacks full
and my pockets full too
Huzzah!

(I always feel that a ‘huzzah’ makes for a rousing song).

At Monkwood, I’m not sure we will be doing much wassailing this year as we are not planning on planting our first apple trees to re-instate an orchard until later this month. However, a bit of shouting, singing and cider-soaked toast might help to protect the new trees through their first year of growth along with the traditional tree guard and a stake.

The map of Monkwood/Green Farm shows how Dominique Cragg, the reserves officer, is going to provide habitats for a variety of plants and animals in our two year plan of restoration and creation. We started with hedge planting in December with schools, scouts and volunteers- a very successful, if muddy, activity.  Soon we will be planting apple trees with Wildgoose Rural Training using local heritage varieties that, of course, have the most amazing names possible - Lord Hindlip, Madresfield Court, Colwall Quoining - yep they are all apple varieties!!

The Worcestershire State of Nature Report 2023 includes orchards in its section about important habitats. Traditional orchards are a distinctive and much-loved feature of Worcestershire’s landscape and can support significant biodiversity, including nationally rare, scare and declining species. Orchards are a rich mosaic of habitats including fruit trees, scrub, herb-rich grassland, hedgerows and hedgerow trees. The decaying timber of orchard trees supports noble chafer beetles, blossom provides nectar in early spring and fallen fruit is great for mammals, birds and invertebrates in autumn.

Since 1950, Worcestershire’s orchards have decreased by 85% but despite this, we have 8% of the remaining orchards in England, some of which are part of a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).

A new thing I learnt whilst writing this blog…the wild crab apple (Malus pumila), which is Britain’s only indigenous apple tree, belongs to the rose family, along with hawthorn, blackthorn and wild pear, which all have thorns on their branches!

So what else do we know about apples? Well there is:

• Apple of my eye. Apple for the teacher. An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
• Adam ate the forbidden apple from the tree of knowledge because Eve persuaded him. Actually it turns out that Genesis doesn’t actually specify apple, it just says fruit. It is often quoted as apple due to wordplay of the Latin word for apple, malus, which can mean both "evil" and "apple".
• In Greek mythology, the apple tree is at the centre of the garden of the Hesperides, a tree belonging to Hera that bore magical golden fruit and gave immortality to those who ate it.
• In Norse mythology, the apple tree is also seen as a tree of immortality. Goddess Idunn, keeper of apples, fed the fruit to all the gods and goddesses, ensuring they would have eternal youth. Maybe that’s where the apple a day idea comes from?
• Or it could be that apples are rich in vitamins and minerals. They improve circulation, support the functions of the nervous system and brain, are high in fibre, beneficial to the liver and make an ideal healthy snack that releases its sugars slowly, keeping blood sugar stable.

But the best piece of folklore I read recently has got to be:

Unicorns are said to live beneath apple trees and can be spotted gallivanting in orchards on silvery, foggy mornings.