Plough Monday
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Plough Monday is the traditional start of the English agricultural year. It is the first Monday after Epiphany, 6 January. In England, customs associated with the beginning of the ploughing season can
Plough Monday, from George Walker's The Costume of Yorkshire, 1814
A plough being pulled through the streets of Whittlesey as part of the Whittlesey Straw Bear Festival procession. Ploughs were traditionally taken around by Plough Monday mummers and molly dancers in parts of eastern England and in some places were used as a threat: if householders refused to donate to the participants their front path would be ploughed up.
Whittlesey Straw Bear
Mummers' play
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Mummers' plays are folk plays performed by troupes of amateur actors, traditionally all male, known as mummers or guisers. The term refers especially to a play in which a number of characters are call
Plough Monday
…containing meat and onions. It is from Norfolk and is eaten on Plough Monday. In Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, and Rutland, a kind of Mummers' play called a Plough Play was performed. Plough Monday customs declined in the 19th century. The advent of mechanised farming meant that agricultural workers…
St. George slays the dragon in a 2015 Boxing Day production by the St Albans Mummers.
Mummers performing in Exeter, Devon in 1994
The Doctor brings St George back to life in a 2015 production by the St Albans Mummers.
Weston Mummers perform at the Packhorse Inn, Southstoke on Boxing Day, 2007.