The wassailing tradition has so far prevailed in our small collection of songs. Those alms rounds have been tightly associated to the younger members of our society. It is the youth who would take the lead on such events. However, the tendency is for those popular traditions to be passed from the young down to the children as they become more conventional and weak with the passage of time.

The New Year’s Day house-visiting wassail is well documented. Here follows a version sung, in the main, around the province of Bizkaia. This one in particular was gathered from singing children of Elantxobe.

Urte barri, barri
Elantxobe (Bizkaia)