Wassailing With Beavers

When we were planning this term for our Beaver Scouts we had the bright idea of having our own little Wassail. The village has a huge one every year so I knew we couldn't top that, but hoped it would be good fun. 

Luckily we had great weather, a cold frosty night so no one was too muddy and no rain!

We couldn't use the scout that night so instead we hired part of the church near to where I live. The plan being to do some crafts and then march down to our own orchard to scare away the spirits.

The craft went well, all the beavers made a lantern with a candle in, while leaders crafted a handle out of garden wire. During the day I'd also made some DIY flaming torches - I might so a post on these soon. So much fun for linch mob...

I was amazed by how much light they gave out, as leaders we didn't really need our battery powered torches and the flames lasted for a good 45 minutes!

The kids loved the shouting bit, every time someone shouted "WASSAIL!" The rest would shout back "DRINK HAIL!", lets just say they really got into it!

When we got down there I'd set up a fire pit that we lit  and stood round. We poured cider on some toast and the children hung them in the trees as an offering while I poured some onto the roots of the trees.

It was a great fun night and all very pagan and fun. The kids seemed to really enjoyed it, but I always gauge a evening on how much fun I had as a leader and this was one of my favourites! I'm glad that the evening was about as far away from a school day as we could get.

Kids need less school more scouts.

Hopefully we banished the evil spirits for another year and secured a good harvest for the season to come!

Anyone else been wassailing this year? Ever done it before?