A NEW song celebrating the farmer’s market, artists and beautiful landscapes of the Five Valleys will be sung as part of this year’s Stroud Wassail Festival.

The Five Valleys Wassail song has been written by Johnny Coppin and celebrates the things we love about Stroud, its people and its surroundings.

This year’s annual community event will be held at the Subscription Rooms and Museum in the Park on January 13 and 14.

In Stroud it was common practice to visit your neighbors after Christmas and sing them a wassail song wishing them a healthy and prosperous year ahead.

People may know the ‘Gloucestershire Wassail’ which is sung as a carol all around the world.

But that was only one of many songs on the theme – and over 20 have been collected from the villages around Stroud.

Johnny’s Five Valleys Wassail is the latest in this age-old medieval tradition and will see its first performance at the Stroud Wassail.

This is a big community event to promote good neighborliness and brings hundreds of people into town on what would otherwise be the quietest time of the year.

“We are delighted that to have a new wassail to sing,” said Stroud Wassail spokesman Steve Rowley, from Pitchcombe.

“Johnny Coppin really brings the tradition into the 21st century with references to Stroud as it is now, like the farmer’s market, the artists, and the landscape.

“It is a celebration of the Five Valleys and it reminds us to respect everyone in our community.”

The singer/songwriter will be leading a mass singing of the song in the Subscription Rooms on Saturday January 14.

He’ll be joined there by the eponymously named ‘Coppin’, the mummers horse.

Stroud News and Journal:

Wassailing comes from the Anglo-Saxon phrase ‘waes hael’, meaning ‘be of good health.’ On 12th night, the wassail cup was passed around the hall for all to have a sip and wish each other good health.

This is where we get the custom of toasting each other when taking a drink.

From 18th century through to the mid-20th century people would go a-wassailing around the houses and farms of the villages singing the song and being repaid with piece of cake and a drop of beer.

This year the group have been visiting Painswick, Miserden, Pitchcombe, Sheepscombe and others.

They carried with them the wassail bowl – a decorated bowl that traditionally carried a mulled ale or cider.

The GlosTrad website features a selection of wassail songs from the area. www.glostrad.com

For more information visit www.stroudwassail.com/