The Vessel-Cup
—There is a very pretty custom, now nearly obsolete, of bearing the “vessel,” or, more properly the wassail-cup, at Christmas. This consists of a box containing two dolls, dressed up to represent the Virgin and the Infant Christ, decorated with ribbons and surrounded by flowers and apples; the box has usually a glass lid, is covered over by a white napkin, and carried from door to door on the arms of a woman; on the top, or in the box, a china bason is placed, and the bearer on reaching a house, uncovered the box and sung the carol known as the “Seven Joys of the Virgin.”
The carrying of the “vessel-cup” is a fortuitous speculation, as it is considered so unlucky to send any one away unrequited, that few can be found whose temerity is so great as to deter them from giving some halfpence to the singer.
In Yorkshire, formerly, only one image used to be carried about—that of the Saviour, which was placed in a box surrounded by evergreens, and such flowers as could be procured at the season. The party to whose house the figure was carried were at liberty to take from the decorations of the image a leaf or a flower, which was carefully preserved and regarded as a sovereign remedy for the toothache.—Jour. of Arch. Assoc. 1853, vol. viii. p. 38; Book of Days, 1864, vol. ii. p. 725; Brand, Pop. Antiq. vol. i. p. 454.