THE APPLE TREE WASSAIL. 55 



village festivities. It is rather curious that, while Sir James 

 Frazer lays great stress upon these two survivals, he does not 

 in the Golden Bough refer to the Apple Tree Wassail. 



Bearing in mind then that ceremonies, which at the present 

 time appear to have a value only as burlesque, are none the 

 less religious survivals, we shall he less surprised to find that 

 our West Country Apple Tree Wassail has behind it a long 

 and honourable history. 



I must apologise for proceeding to state one or two facts 

 which are probably well known to most of those present to-day, 

 but my excuse is that their clue remembrance is essential to 

 the considerations I wish to advance. 



It must be kept in mind that religions, and especially 

 primitive religions as distinct from magical cults, fall generally 

 speaking into one of two classes they are connected with 

 earth spirits or with sky gods. Without being irreverent, it 

 may be stated that Christianity, following its predecessor 

 Judaism, falls into the latter class; but this class is, at any rate 

 in Western Europe, by no means the older. Men worshipped 

 spirits of the earth before they worshipped spirits of the sky. 



If one may make an extremely rough generalisation of the 

 work of archaeologists in the classical lands of the Mediter- 

 ranean, it may be laid down that the first peoples of that 

 region of whom we have knowledge were agriculturists who 

 worshipped earth deities, and buried their dead ; while, at a 

 later date, they were encroached upon by, and ultimately fused 

 with, pastoral invaders from the north, a taller fairer race 

 who worshipped sky and storm deities and practised cremation. 

 If in the light of some of these researches we consider the 

 various points of the Apple Tree Wassail we shall begin to see 

 some connection between our folk custom and the religions of 

 the ancient world. 



The ritual song and the ritual dance are both expressions of 

 the same idea. The dance expresses the result in action, the 

 song is an expression of the wish in words. Thus the first 

 men to dance round the tree, in the hope that a crop might be 

 secured to them, were performing in their early world a 



