Apple-howling

 Thoreau mentioned several winter celebrations in England involving fruit trees, especially apples. 

During the winter, farm folk would go to the orchards, armed with drink, toasted bread and song. They saluted the trees, pouring libations and offering blessings. The idea was to encourage the trees to be well and bear well. All this lyrical blessing was called “wassailing.”

Some people called the practice “apple-howling.” It seems like a good way to mark the winter solstice.

I like all trees, not just fruit trees. Maybe the pines in the woodlot would like a song on the longest night.

• Henry David Thoreau’s “Wild Apples” is in Essays, edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013, pp. 317-45.