TWELFTH NIGHT by Arletta Dawdy

      The custom of Twelfth Night celebrations spread throughout the British Isles since the Middle Ages, adapting to local color and habits. Some Arthurian enthusiasts believe that King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table gathered in Cornwall and honored the drinking of the apple flavored ale in days of old. Surely the use of a special bowl may well have graced the table and made its round  

no doubt refilled many times over. 

In BISBEE’S GLORY, my work-in-progress, Glory’s father relates the story of Cornwall’s experience of Twelfth Night and its adaption in the new land. It is January 6, 1887, twelve days after Christmas.

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            “Da, I hear some singing! Can it be the carolers? Oh, it must be them.” Glory ran and flung open the door of the tiny cabin they’d called home since her father’s horrible mine accident left him crippled the previous summer.

            “Who’s to care,” the ornery patient grumbled. He pulled the patchwork quilt over his head and turned as best he could to the stonework wall

“Ah, me dad, listen to the sound of them. Ain’t it wonderful.”  Moving to the hook on the wall, she grabbed her thick blue shawl and whipped it around her shoulders. Then, standing in the open doorway, she listened to the words and felt the joy of harmonizing voices.

 “Da, it’s your old choir boys. The ones you led all these years past. They’ve come to sing special for you!

. Here we come a-wassailing
Among the leaves so green;

 The chorus of strong male voices rang out, as if to challenge their old leader to take part.

             “Go off and away with you!” David yelled in response and continued to cover his ears against memories as much as the present. “Have ya no caring for this old man? No honor for what is done and gone?’ His voice faded at the last.

                                                            Here we come a-wand'ring
                                                                    So fair to be seen. 

                                                            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*

Glory looked back to see that her father lowered the quilt from his ears and face as the voices rose higher. A light smile caressed his cheeks, a sight not often seen of late. She looked out into the night sky, radiant with the glitter of so many stars. The hillsides of Bisbee appeared rolling and gentle in the moonlight and the gleaming of so many home side fires and lamps. Their little world rang with sounds of celebration that even the thundering stampmill couldn’t blot out.

 “My mother is here now, Da. She and Mrs. Cragen are passing out drinks and  cookies to all who have gathered. Will I get you some?”  

 Not waiting for an answer, Glory skipped out the door and took the offerings from the women, giving her mother a wink and a kiss on the forehead. Voices called out to Glory and her father with wishes for a Happy New Year. None made a wish for Health to come, knowing the futility of such a wish for their former leader of song and deep mining.

Glory watched as the chorus and Mrs. Cragen’s boarders left to resume their celebrations elsewhere. She welcomed her mother with a deep hug and found the woman shedding tears. The unspoken fear for their husband and father was always at the surface of their thoughts and actions. Even so at the celebration of Twelfth Night.

While Brita rushed about to get David’s hot super ready, Glory pulled a stool close to her father’s bed. His eyes searched her face and he reached inside himself to tell her a story as had become their habit of an early evening.

“You know the wassailing goes back aways in the old country. Even to the days of the King Arthur. ‘Course that could only be legend.”

“But what a fine legend!” Glory conjured up visions of the moors, the rugged coastline and the smattering of villages and farmlands. ..and the many copper wheals scattered around the countryside. The same mines that had given out in the mid-nineteenth century, sending families like hers from its shores.

 

                                   CORNISH MINING WORLD HERITAGE SITE**

“In Bodmin, there’s the story of the wassailing bowl rumored to have been given to the townsfolk around 1624, and still in use...at least, when we left.”  He turned pensive and Glory thought he’d become lost in sad memories.                                       

   “What’s the meaning of the wassailling?” the girl asked.

“There’s some customs tha’ve come down to modern days tho’ I’m hard pressed to say if they belong to New Year’s or Twelfth Night. There’s blessing of the apple harvest by taking a drink of the Wassail. Or the sanding of the doorstep, allowing the first over it to set the family’s fortunes for the following year.”

“I’m not sure I’d care for that one.” Glory thought back to the last New Year’s Eve when friends carried her father home drunk as all get out.

Bodmin  Wassail Cup***

“Tell her the story of the Wassail Saint.” Brita put the large cup of potato and bacon soup on a tray and placed it near her husband, the easier for him to drink from it. She sat down at the small table close by his cot.

“Now that is a mysterious one, for sure.” He slurped his soup and winked at his wife. “Seems there’s a saint who’s barely known or understood. Most don’t even know if it’s male or female. But me, I see her as a young maiden with the blackest of black hair flowing down her back, like your Ma! She’s said to sit at the fount of perpetual youth.”  He took another big sip of his meal.

“And what did this saint do?” Glory looked to her mother and then back to her father who continued to drain his cup. She tapped her foot, wanting him to get on with the story.

“Well, now, seems the saint made promises never kept but must be fulfilled on St. Tibb’s Eve.”

“Never heard of a St.Tibb  or the eve! When is it?”

“Don’t you know, it’s the one falls between the old and the new year!”  

 David roared with laughter seldom heard of late. Glory looked to her mother and saw her big smile and trembling shoulders. Happiness engulfed Glory with love for her parents and the sense that all would come out right as she prayed for her father's better health in the New Year.

                                                               
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References:

 

*   The “WASSAIL SONG” is an English carol from about 1850, adapted by other groups     to fit their locale and custom; no credit is given for the original composer or lyricist

**   CORNISH MINING WORLD HERITAGE SITE, www.cornish-mining.org.uk/news/merry-christmas-and-happy-new-year,

***  Bodmin Wassail Cup, date unknown; replacement for the original by potter John Webb of Lostwithiel, http://cornishculture.co.uk,.

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Arletta Dawdy is the California based author who writes Historical Fiction of Southeast Arizona Territory in THE HUACHUCA TRILOGY comprised of HUACHUCA WOMAN, BY GRACE AND ROSE OF SHARON. In 2019, look for BISBEE'S GLORY, a tale of danger, familial and romantic love in a rough and ready mining town; follow Glory to nursing school in the East and service in the Spanish American War, only to wend her way back home.