Guestling Bradshaw CE Primary School

Twelfth Night is a celebration on January 5th that marks the twelfth and final night of the Christmas season. The Twelve Days of Christmas are the twelve days beginning on night of Christmas and ending on the eve of Epiphany. In the Middle Ages, this December period was one of continuous feasting and merrymaking. Twelfth Night was the last chance to have fun before a general return to work (on Plough Monday).

During the twelve days of Christmas, traditional roles were often reversed: masters waited on their servants, men were allowed to dress as women, and women as men. Often a Lord of Misrule was chosen to lead the Christmas festivities. Some of these traditions were adapted from older, pagan customs, and some are echoed in modern day pantomime where authority is made fun of, and the principal male is played by a woman, while the 'Dame' is played by a man.

Folk plays were performed at Midwinter all over England. They were called Mummings or Guizings from the disguises players wore. The hero in the play was often St. George. Other characters typically included Father Christmas as the narrator, a villain such as the devil or a Turkish knight, and a doctor. The stories varied, but all featured death and resurrection: a theme at the heart of Christianity. The performance also gave an opportunity to collect money for the poor.

Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night; or, What You Will is a comedy written as a Twelfth Night's entertainment for the close of the Christmas season. The play has elements that are reversed in the Twelfth Night tradition, such as Viola (a woman) dressing as a man, and Malvolio (a servant) imagining that he can become a nobleman.

At the beginning of the Twelfth Night festival, a Twelfth-cake was baked to contain a bean and a pea. The cake was cut into slices and the people who found the bean and the pea became king and queen of the night's festivities. Everyone had to obey their commands!

Wassail comes from the Anglo-Saxon was hail, meaning, 'be whole'. If somebody bids you 'wassail' you may reply 'drink hail', meaning 'your health'.

The wassail was a hot drink including apples, sugar, nutmeg, cloves, ginger and ale, made in a special bowl. The bowl with evergreen boughs was carried from house to house and the inhabitants invited to drink wassail to the season:

The tradition of wassail is continued in Britain today – singing to cider apple trees to ensure a good harvest the following year! The wassail drink is made with cider and spices. A wassail queen (or king) leads a parade to a tree, often the oldest in the orchard. When she gets there, she dips a piece of toast in the wassail cup and places it in the boughs of the tree to attract favourable spirits. More mulled cider is then poured round the base of the tree, and evil spirits are scared away with loud noises such as sticks banged together. Then everyone sings a wassail song to the trees!

It has become traditional to take down the Christmas decorations on Twelfth Night, and even today, some people are superstitious about it.

Long ago people thought that tree spirits lived in the greenery they brought into the house. This would keep them safe over the darkest and coldest days of winter. However, if they were not released back into the wild again by taking the greenery outside, the trees in the countryside would not be able to start growing again. People also thought that if the tree spirits were kept in the house for too long, they would start to cause mischief.

Another possible explanation is that Epiphany marks the time the wise men were visiting the baby Jesus. Afterwards they were told by God in a dream not to go back to Herod as he was looking for Jesus to try to kill him, so they went home a different way. We take down all signs of decoration, so when Herod comes looking, he won’t find the child – in a symbolic way, of course.

Up until the 19th Century, people did not add the wise men to their nativity scenes until Epiphany, so they left their decorations up until Candlemas, but in Queen Victoria’s time reverted to taking down the decorations and burning them on Twelfth Night.

The custom of burning the Yule Log goes back to medieval times. It was originally a Nordic tradition: Yule is the name of the old Winter Solstice festivals in Scandinavia.

The Yule Log was originally an entire tree, carefully chosen and brought into the house with great ceremony. The largest end of the log would be placed into the fire hearth while the rest of the tree stuck out into the room! The log would be lit from the remains of the previous year's log, which was thought to protect the house from fire and lightning. Nowadays, of course, most people have central heating so it is very difficult to burn a tree!