Here We Come A-Wassailing

Here We Come A-wassailing (or Here We Come A-caroling) is an English conventional Christmas carol and New Years tune, obviously made up c. 1850. The old English wassail song refers to ‘wassailing’, or singing carols door to door wanting health, [3] while the a- is an archaic magnifying prefix; compare A-Hunting We Will Go and lyrics to The Twelve Days of Christmas (e.g., “Six geese a-laying”).

According to Readers Digest; “the Christmas spirit typically made the rich a bit more generous than normal, and bands of beggars and orphans used to dance their method with the snowy streets of England, providing to sing good cheer and to inform good fortune if the owner would provide them a drink from his wassail bowl or a penny or a pork pie or, let them represent a couple of minutes close to the heat of his hearth. The wassail bowl itself was a hearty combination of hot ale or beer, apples, spices and mead, just alcoholic enough to warm tingling toes and fingers of the vocalists.”.

Here we come a-wassailing (Lyrics)

Here we come a-wassailing
Among the leaves so green;
Here we come a-wand’ring
So fair to be seen.

REFRAIN:
Love and joy come to you,
And to you your wassail too;
And God bless you and send you a Happy New Year
And God send you a Happy New Year.

Our wassail cup is made
Of the rosemary tree,
And so is your beer
Of the best barley.

REFRAIN

We are not daily beggars
That beg from door to door;
But we are neighbours’ children,
Whom you have seen before.

REFRAIN

Call up the butler of this house,
Put on his golden ring.
Let him bring us up a glass of beer,
And better we shall sing.

REFRAIN

We have got a little purse
Of stretching leather skin;
We want a little of your money
To line it well within.

REFRAIN

Bring us out a table
And spread it with a cloth;
Bring us out a mouldy cheese,
And some of your Christmas loaf.

REFRAIN

God bless the master of this house
Likewise the mistress too,
And all the little children
That round the table go.

REFRAIN

Good master and good mistress,
While you’re sitting by the fire,
Pray think of us poor children
Who are wandering in the mire.

REFRAIN