In the late eighteenth century antiquarian John Brand recorded the following Christmas-time practice:
In several counties the custom of apple-howling (or Yuling), is still in observance. A troop of boys go round the orchards in Sussex, Devonshire, and other parts, and forming a ring about the trees, they repeat these doggerel lines:
Stand fast root, bear well top,
Pray God send us a good howling crop;
Every twig, apples big:
Every bough, apples enou;
Hats full, caps full,
Full quarter sacks full.
For which incantation the confused rabble expect a gratuity in money or drink, which is no less welcome: but if they are disappointed of both, they with great solemnity anathematize the owners and trees with altogether as significant a curse. It seems highly probable that this custom has arisen from the ancient one of perambulation among the heathens, when they made prayers to the gods for the use and blessing of the fruits coming up, with thanksgiving for those of the preceding year; and as the heathens supplicated Eolus, god of the winds, for his favourable blasts, so in this custom they still retain his name with a very small variation; this ceremony is called Youling, and the word is often used in their invocations.
Like most of these rural customs Apple Howling died out by the early 20th century but it has recently been revived by a group of Morris dancers in Sussex. After poetically encouraging the orchard, a spiced and cider-