Allan, Kevin & Jim, pictured here but not necessarily in that order, are three of the many Leominster Morris Men who enlivened the Wassailing ceremony in Much Marcle this evening. There was much cider drinking, singing, dancing, mumming, torchlighting, eating, cheering and the firing of shotguns into the starry sky, again not necessarily in that order.
Wassailing is another of those historic rural English traditions designed to bring light into darkness, dispelling January gloom by lifting human spirits as well as frightening evil ones away (as folklore tells it).
I'd say it was just an excuse for a good-natured piss-up in an old orchard lit with twelve bonfires. And there's nowt wrong wi' that on a cold and frosty winter's evening neither.
