The story behind Here We Come A Wassailing
Here We Come A Wassailing is a visiting song. The singers stand at the door, name the green of the winter leaves, and ask the house to answer with kindness. The old word in the first line is the whole plot.
Wassail comes from the Old English toast waes hael, be in health. The reply was drinc hael, drink in health. The song keeps that exchange: a wish for the family, then a hope that the bowl, or a coin, or a bite of food, will come back the other way.
History and origins
The custom is older than any single printed copy of this tune. In medieval halls a steward could lift a bowl to the lord and wish him health. By the early modern centuries the same idea had moved outdoors. In cider counties and ale counties, groups went from house to house in the dark days after Christmas, sometimes on New Year's Eve, sometimes on Twelfth Night. They carried a wooden bowl, sang, and expected the door to open. The drink inside was hot ale or cider, spiced, and often thickened with roasted apples. That mixture is one of the things people mean by lamb's wool, a name for the wassail drink rather than for a fabric. The song we print now is one member of that large family, not the only script the custom ever had.
The familiar English words wish love and joy, bless the master and the mistress, and notice the children around the table. One verse is careful about pride. The singers say they are not daily beggars who beg from door to door. They are neighbors' children, or neighbors, whom the house has seen before. That line matters. Wassailing could look like begging to a stranger, and the text refuses the insult. It frames the visit as a known relationship: you know our faces, we know your door, the song is a seasonal duty on both sides. A later verse sends the blessing down to the little children and sometimes out to the barn, because a healthy year had to include stock as well as people.
Print settled the words slowly. Broadsides and nineteenth century collections gathered wassail texts that share lines and then diverge. The tune sung in schools and at carol services is traditional, which means it belongs to a tune family rather than to a named composer. Arrangers have smoothed the rhythm for choirs, but the gait of the song still feels like walking. It is built to be sung while moving, then planted on a step for the chorus. The refrain, love and joy come to you, and to you your wassail too, is the part a crowd can join even if the verses belong to a leader.
In the United States a common schoolbook change swapped the old verb for a safer one. Children learned Here we come a caroling instead of Here we come a wassailing. The new line is polite, and it is not the same custom. Caroling can mean any doorstep singing. Wassailing means the health toast, the bowl, and the right to ask. When a choir restores the older word, it is not being quaint for its own sake. It is naming the drink and the bargain. This song should also not be folded into the Gloucestershire Wassail. That is another toast, with other verses, other beasts, and another melody. They share a custom. They are not one piece.
Full lyrics
Verse 1
Here we come a wassailing
Among the leaves so green;
Here we come a wandering
So fair to be seen.
Chorus
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.
Verse 2
We are not daily beggars
That beg from door to door;
But we are neighbours' children,
Whom you have seen before.
Verse 3
God bless the master of this house,
Likewise the mistress too;
And all the little children
That round the table go.
The text above follows a standard public domain version. Singers will meet small changes from book to book, especially in folk carols.
Lyrics presented for educational and personal use. Sing along responsibly this holiday season!
Meaning and symbolism
The lyric is a blessing with a bill attached, and it is honest about both. Love and joy are offered first. Then God is asked to bless the house and send a happy New Year. Only after that does the practical hope appear: let us in, give us a bit of your good cheer, and we will leave you with a good word. The green leaves in the opening verse are the winter decorations, holly and other evergreens, that told a street the season had turned.
The denial that the singers are daily beggars is social theology in plain speech. A feast day levels the door for an hour. The poor may sing to the rich, the young may bless the old, and the gift of food does not turn the singer into a client for the rest of the year. Whether every house honored that ideal is another question. The song states the ideal clearly, which is why it still sounds dignified when a choir in clean robes sings a text about figgy leftovers and small beer.
Fun facts and statistics
- Wassail comes from the Old English greeting waes hael, meaning be in health.
- Singers went from door to door hoping for food, drink, or coins in return for a blessing.
- The bowl in the custom held hot ale or cider with spices, sometimes with roasted apples.
- A common American school text changed the opening to Here we come a caroling.
- The older and more precise verb is wassailing, not caroling.
- This is not the same song as the Gloucestershire Wassail, though both belong to the visiting custom.
- The tune is traditional, and printed copies gathered an already circulating custom rather than inventing it.
Top 5 most popular renditions
The Watersons
1965
On Frost and Fire, their Topic album of songs for the ritual year, the Watersons set this wassail first. The harmony is close, nasal, and unpolished in the best sense, the sound of a family who learned songs in kitchens. Nothing in the track asks you to picture a cathedral. It asks you to picture a lane, a bowl, and a door. That framing did a great deal, in the folk revival, to pull the song back from the schoolbook word caroling and toward the older health toast.
The Watersons
The Choir of King's College, Cambridge
20th century broadcasts
King's has sung the wassail inside the liturgy of carols, with boys and men, a clean organ or none, and the acoustic of a large chapel. The effect is different from a folk group and still legitimate. The chorus becomes architecture. Love and joy come to you rings, then settles. What the choir must not lose is the visiting tone of the verses. When the diction stays conversational, the blessing sounds given, not displayed, and the New Year line feels like a real wish rather than a cadence only.
The Choir of King's College, Cambridge
John Rutter and the Cambridge Singers
1980s
Rutter's carol albums treat the song as part of a polished English Christmas sequence, with blended adult voices and a careful dynamic plan. The walking pulse stays clear, and the refrain is allowed to widen without turning into a shout. His approach is the one many church choirs now imitate from recordings: neat vowels, a warm line, and no fake rustic accent. It is a concert reading that still leaves the doorstep story intact if the program note tells the truth about the bowl.
John Rutter and the Cambridge Singers
Robert Shaw Chorale
1950s
Shaw's American carol records taught a generation of singers a clean, blended way into British folk carols. In his hands the wassail becomes legible to a choir that has never carried a bowl. The risk of that clarity is gentility, a song that sounds invited rather than arrived. Shaw avoids the worst of that by keeping the rhythm pointed and the text forward. You can still hear a company at a threshold, even in a studio, which is why his reading remains a useful model for community choirs.
Robert Shaw Chorale
The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square
20th century concerts
The Tabernacle Choir sings the wassail with a large romantic sound and a very wide chorus. The scale is the opposite of a cottage door, so the performance lives or dies on whether the verses stay light. When they do, the size of the choir turns the blessing into a public benediction, which fits a song whose last word is a happy New Year for a whole house. It is a reminder that the custom moved from halls to lanes and then, without shame, into massed choral programs.
The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square
Sheet music
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Notes for singers
If you place Here We Come A Wassailing in a December service, a school program, or a living room sing, teach Traditional before you add harmony. A confident melody lets guests enter on the refrain. Say the names when you introduce it. The words are credited to Traditional, and the music to Traditional. The year to remember is Traditional, and the place to name is England.
This sits in the library as a folk carol. Let that tradition set the tempo. A lullaby loses its point if it is hurried. A dance carol loses its point if every syllable is precious. Leave a breath at the end of the verse so the next line feels chosen rather than chased.
Wassail comes from the Old English greeting waes hael, meaning be in health. Hold that fact in the introduction you speak, not only in a program note. Singers went from door to door hoping for food, drink, or coins in return for a blessing. Those two details give a listener a reason to hear the song as a made thing, not as wallpaper.
When the group is small, one voice can carry the verse and everyone can take the refrain. When the group is a choir, decide in advance whether you are telling a story or painting a picture. Story songs want clear words. Picture songs can bloom. Here We Come A Wassailing will tell you which it is after a single unaccompanied read through.
Questions readers ask
Wassail comes from the Old English toast waes hael, be in health, answered by a wish to drink in health. In this song it names both the greeting and the shared bowl of hot ale or cider, spiced, that singers carried from door to door. The word is the custom, not a decorative synonym for carol.
American school songbooks often rewrote the first line as Here we come a caroling. The change is real and widespread, and it softens a custom that included asking for food or drink. The older verb is wassailing. If a choir uses the school line, it should say so, because the two openings are not identical in meaning.
No. Both songs belong to the English custom of visiting houses with a health toast, and both mention drink and the household. The tunes are different, and the Gloucestershire text goes on to name animals and a maid in the house. Singing one does not count as singing the other. Program them as neighbors, not as two titles for a single piece.
No single author or year can be assigned. The door to door health visit is old, and the familiar English verses were gathered in print across the nineteenth century from an oral custom already in use. The tune is traditional. What we have is a stable family of words, not a composer's manuscript with a date on the corner.
Why this song endures
The song lasts because the transaction is still recognizable. People still sing at doors in December, still want to be welcomed, and still feel the slight embarrassment of asking. The text solves the embarrassment in advance. It says: we belong to this place, we are wishing you well, and the cup is shared. That is a sturdier plot than a vague command to be festive.
It also lasts because the chorus is easy and the verses are specific. Love and joy come to you can be learned in a minute. The master, the mistress, the children, and the claim not to be beggars give a choir something to act. As long as winter visiting survives in any form, from a church night walk to a pub carol, this is one of the songs that tells you what the visit is for.