Plough Monday

the first Monday on or after 7 January · Lincolnshire

Still kept

Lincolnshire

On the first Monday after Twelfth Day farm lads dragged a plough decked with ribbons, the Fool Plough, from house to house, led by a man dressed as an old woman called Bessy and a Fool, sometimes with morris or sword dancers. Before the Reformation the money kept plough-lights burning in church; afterwards it went on ale. A Lincolnshire man who had blown the cow-horn on many a Plough Monday told Chambers that a house which gave nothing might have the ground before its door ploughed up, and that the men believed no law could touch them for it. Plough plays and processions are still kept in parts of Lincolnshire and the East Midlands. Chambers dates it 11 January, as it fell in 1864.

the whole twenty men yoked pulling like one, and in a minute or two the ground before the house was as brown, barren, and ridgy as a newly-ploughed field.

From Chambers's Book of Days, vol. 1, pp. 94-95. Read the original

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Folklore from the old calendars

Goose-dancing in Scilly No longer kept Isles of ScillyHone's Table Book, quoting the Monthly Magazine of January 1827, says that at Plough Monday time the young people of the Isles of Scilly went goose-dancing.
Cock in the pot on Plough Monday No longer kept EnglandTusser counted Plough Monday among the ploughman's feast days, and Tusser Redivivus of 1744 explained the rhyme that went with it.
Plough Monday morris at Claybrooke No longer kept LeicestershireAulay Macaulay, in his History and Antiquities of Claybrooke of 1791, wrote that every Plough Monday a company of morris dancers came into Claybrooke from the neighbouring villages of Sapcote and Sharnford.
Sunshine on the twelfth of January Lore and belief EnglandThe Shepherd's Almanack for 1676, among its notes on January, recorded that some people held that if the sun shone on 12 January it foretold much wind.
The sock-men’s ploughs No longer kept Northern EnglandOn Plough Monday, ploughmen in the north dragged a plough from door to door and begged money for drink.
The Madgy Pegs of Whitby No longer kept YorkshireOn Plough Monday at Whitby an extra band of six danced the sword dance, ending by plaiting their swords into a hexagon or rose that one of them held up above their heads.
The Lord Mayor’s Plough Monday wassail No longer kept LondonOn Plough Monday the Lord Mayor of London kept wassail with his household, with the Lady Mayoress at the head of their table.
The plough-gathering at Wigtoft No longer kept LincolnshireIn 1575 the churchwardens of Wigtoft in Lincolnshire received a pound from two men for the plough-gathering, the money collected when the ploughmen went round with their plough.
The plough light at Holbeach No longer kept Lincolnshire, NorfolkMany churches before the Reformation kept a plough light burning before an image, paid for by the husbandmen, who feasted on Plough Monday and went about with a plough and dancers.

Plough Monday

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