The tradition of wassailing (alt sp wasselling) falls into two distinct categories: the house-visiting wassail and the orchard-visiting wassail. The house-visiting wassail is the practice of people going door-to-door, singing and offering a drink from the wassail bowl in exchange for gifts; this practice still exists, but has largely been displaced by carolling. The orchard-visiting wassail refers to the ancient custom of visiting orchards in cider-producing regions of England, reciting incantations and singing to the trees to promote a good harvest for the coming year. Notable traditional wassailing songs include "Here We Come a-Wassailing", "Gloucestershire Wassail", and "Gower Wassail". Etymology According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word "wassail" originated as a borrowing from the Old Norse salutation ves heill, corresponding to Old English hál wes þú or wes hál – literally meaning 'be in good health' or 'be fortunate'. It was initially used in the sense of 'hail' or 'farewell'. Later it developed into the first part of a drinking formula "wassail...drinkhail". By 1300, the sense had extended to the drink itself, especially to the spiced ale used in Twelfth-night and Christmas Eve celebrations, and by 1598 it was being applied to the custom of drinking healths on those nights. Wassailing during Christmastide Traditionally, the wassail is celebrated on Twelfth Night (variously on either January 5 or 6). Some people still wassail on "Old Twelvey Night", January 17, as it would have been before the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar in 1752. In the middle ages, the wassail was a reciprocal exchange between the feudal lords and their peasants as a form of recipient-initiated charitable giving, to be distinguished from begging. This point is made in the song "Here We Come A-wassailing", when the wassailers inform the lord of the house that The lord of the manor would give food and drink to the peasants in exchange for their blessing and goodwill, i.e. This would be given in the form of the song being sung. Wassailing is the background practice against which an English carol such as "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" can be made sense of. The carol lies in the English tradition where wealthy people of the community gave Christmas treats to the carollers on Christmas Eve such as 'figgy puddings'. Although wassailing is often described in innocuous and sometimes nostalgic terms—still practised in some parts of Scotland and Northern England on New Years Day as