Came across this item in a newspaper column. I 'spect there is, or was, some music to go along with the celebration described:
"An old superstition says bad luck clings to your skin like burrs, and it is very difficult to get free of them. This led to the myth of the Burryman, who for well into the 19th century was blamed in English lore for many of the hardships and woes of life. On the fourth of August, in South Queensferry, England, it was long a tradition to have a Burryman's Parade. To rid the town of the current curse, someone would be dressed in flannel, covered with burdock burrs and paraded through the streets in a wheelbarrow."