A couple of people have asked me recently if there were any Wassail songs collected in Oxfordshire. A quick search of the VWML catalogue brings up 10 records, but most of these actually refer to the same song – the two verse fragment collected by Janet Blunt from William ‘Binx’ Walton of Adderbury in December 1917. Of the others, none can definitively be said to be an Oxfordshire song:
- there’s another Wassail song collected by Janet Blunt, but although she heard it sung in Adderbury her notes have it as originating in Birkenhead
- the song recorded by Mike Yates at Headington Quarry on Christmas Day 1975 is almost certainly the ‘Somerset Wassail’ (that’s what the Quarry Mummers sing these days – I know, because I was playing for them on Boxing Day this year)
- and, having consulted more knowledgeable members of the Traditional Song Forum, it seems that the phonograph recording made by James Madison Carpenter, credited to an “Oxfordshire Singer”, was more likely than not made in the neighbouring county of Gloucestershire.
In his book Village Song & Culture: A Study Based on the Blunt Collection of Song from Adderbury North Oxfordshire, Michael Pickering writes
Binx tried hard to remember this song for Blunt in December 1917, but could remember only two of the three verses in their entirety. Of the first verse, only the opening came back to him: ‘Good mortal man, remember…’
This is a familiar wassail song line, and we can safely assume that the nature of those following was didactic.
In looking for additional verses to add to the two which Walton did remember, I came across this nice version by former Adderbury Morris Squire Tim Radford. But noting that he’d got a couple of the verses from the Albion Band, I thought I’d choose some others, just to be different. The “mortal man remember” phrase I associate with the Hampshire Mummers’ Song ‘God Bless the Master’, and it turns up also in this Sussex Mummers’ Carol. I’ve borrowed my first couple of verses from there (verses which I think can fairly be categorised as “didactic”); added a generic “God bless the master…” verse as verse 3; and then I finish off with William Walton’s two verses. This means I get to sing the splendid line “A bit o’ your good vittles ma’am” at the end of the song, finishing off, appropriately enough with
We wish you a Merry Christmas
And a Happy New Year.
Sentiments which I heartily endorse.
William Walton’s Wassail Song, from the Janet Blunt MSS.
The Adderbury Wassail
Andy Turner – vocal, G/D anglo-concertina
A Folk Song a Week 
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