Plough Monday - you couldn't make it up

Subject: Plough Monday - you couldn't make it up
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 03:43 PM

Letter in today's Guardian (UK) newspaper:

Plough Sunday still happens (Letters, January 17). A few years ago at St John's Knaresborough, we jingled our way through Lord of the Dance with 150 morris men. All very bucolic.
Rev John Caperon
Crowborough, East Sussex

With a name like that, born to dance?

There was also an obituary in today's Guardian of ballet choreographer and director Norman Morrice....

Kitty

Subject: RE: Plough Monday - you couldn't make it up
From: brassy sharman
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 07:04 AM

There were a couple of refrences to Wassailing on radio 4 also, there were 2 seperate Wassail events near us over the last w.e. N.Lincs how many others throiughout the country and how many7 were reported on local news?

Subject: RE: Plough Monday - you couldn't make it up
From: Sue the Borderer
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 07:20 AM

Exmoor Border wassailed at a Cider Orchard near Goodleigh in North Devon on Saturday. The photographer from the local paper was there.

Sue

Subject: RE: Plough Monday - you couldn't make it up
From: Mr Happy
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 07:26 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plough_Monday

Subject: RE: Plough Monday - you couldn't make it up
From: Captain Ginger
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 12:24 PM

Born to dance, maybe - or maybe just not to fertilise chickens!

Subject: RE: Plough Monday - you couldn't make it up
From: Rusty Dobro
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 01:08 PM

I went for the first time to see the Old Glory Molly Men at Rumburgh 'Buck', Suffolk, on Plough Monday. I feel that after all these years I'm fairly hard to impress, but fortified by a pint or two of 'Rusty Bucket', there was a real sense of occasion as we waited under the stars for the procession. We heard the tramp of the hob-nailed boots first, then saw the flaming torches as the Lord and Lady of the Dance (both men, of course) led the dancers along the village street dragging the plough behind them. Then came the musicians, all female, carrying lanterns and dressed in greenery.

All were 'blacked-up', a necessary precaution in days gone by, as Plough Monday was really an excuse to demand money with menaces, (if having a plough share dragged across your garden constitutes a menace)and the men ran the risk of being recognised by their employers. As befits a farm workers' tradition , the dancing was perhaps a bit more energetic and physical than some Morris sides, all greatly appreciated by a sizeable crowd. There was a break for the toast to the plough, and at the end, the ivy used during the winter dances was ceremoniously burnt as the centre-piece of a dance.

The effect, especially as the procession emerged from the darkness, was surprisingly creepy, and I look forward to taking my grandchildren next year to show them that there's a world beyond their games machines and DVD's. Old Glory have an excellent website, with lots of background information on the Plough Monday tradition.

Subject: RE: Plough Monday - you couldn't make it up
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 02:28 PM

Brings a different meaning to the line - "We plough the fields and SCATTER!".

Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: Plough Monday - you couldn't make it up
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 02:36 PM

Captain Ginger - does this mean you also saw the letter below John Caperon's? -

Your review of No Country for Old Men (Film & Music, January 18) describes the three leading men as having "the spectacular virility of Texan steers". A steer is a castrated bull.
Ted Truscoe
Horley, Surrey

I'm really not making this up - here's the link

Kitty

Subject: RE: Plough Monday - you couldn't make it up
From: Emma B
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 02:57 PM

Bought a copy of Old Glory's CD 'Old Glory & the Cutty Wren' at Strawbear this year.

Sleeve notes describe it as 'So Suffolk it hurts! :)

Subject: RE: Plough Monday - you couldn't make it up
From: Willa
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 03:03 PM

A wassail event took place in the new community orchard in Hull last week, and was mentioned in the local press.

Subject: RE: Plough Monday - you couldn't make it up
From: katlaughing
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 03:12 PM

Clearly I have been reading the wrong newspaper for letters!

Thanks for the smiles, Kitty.

And, thanks for the education folks. Now I know what Plough Monday is all about and, once again, wish we had such traditions over here.

Subject: RE: Plough Monday - you couldn't make it up
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 03:47 PM

I'm a bit surprised nobody's yet mentioned Goathland Plough Stotts.

Kitty

Subject: RE: Plough Monday - you couldn't make it up
From: Jim Martin
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 09:09 PM

This may also be of interest:

http://www.old-glory.co.uk/index_files/cuttywren.htm



Jim Martin

Subject: RE: Plough Monday - you couldn't make it up
From: pavane
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 03:05 AM

I recently established that a contact of mine had a relative who was a vet. His surname is COWOP, and she had NEVER noticed the link.

I think New Scientist magazine had a long-running item on people whose names were coincidentally linked to their jobs, but I can't recall the technical term they used for it.

(By the way, re Norman Morrice, this could really have been a descriptive name, his ancestors could have been Morris dancers.)

Subject: RE: Plough Monday - you couldn't make it up
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 01:37 PM

So, this Plough Monday business. Is it a thirteenth century Christian practice of blessing ploughs, resurected by 18/19C plough boys to make money?

Subject: RE: Plough Monday - you couldn't make it up
From: Marje
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 02:02 PM

We had a local wassail here in Stoke Gabriel, Devon, that was reported by the local press and also, so I am told, BBC Radio 4 and a local radio station. I had pulled together a "folk band" to play for part of the evening, so it's possible that some of our music was broadcast, but I have no idea when. No one asked us who we were, so it looks as if we missed our chance to hit the big time :-( Perhaps the reporters were more interested in the performance of Newton Bushel Morris, who valiantly (or foolishly) danced despite heavy rain and mud. Still, I'm quite chuffed to hear that the event got noticed.

Subject: RE: Plough Monday - you couldn't make it up
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 04:54 PM

"So, this Plough Monday business. Is it a thirteenth century Christian practice of blessing ploughs, resurected by 18/19C plough boys to make money?"

Yes, and re-resurrected in the 20th/21st centuries by teachers, computer programmers etc. who think it's pagan. It's a funny old world!

Subject: RE: Plough Monday - you couldn't make it up
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 25 Jan 08 - 12:37 PM

And (to the tune of Speed the Plough):

May the Great Programmer
Bring much peace and gigabytes of succes
To all that toil at the screen
May their hard drives never crash
May their software be forever free of viruses

No all down the wine bar for the traditional attack of Chardonnay and Tapas as our forefathers and brethren and sissteren have done
Since the building of Stonehenge 1

Wassail!

Subject: RE: Plough Monday - you couldn't make it up
From: Fidjit
Date: 25 Jan 08 - 02:34 PM

Do people still read the Guardian? It used to be full of mistakes.

Chas

Subject: RE: Plough Monday - you couldn't make it up
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 25 Jan 08 - 03:05 PM

Fidjit - that was the Grauniad. The Guardian has a policy of publishing corrections!

Kitty

Subject: RE: Plough Monday - you couldn't make it up
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 25 Jan 08 - 05:08 PM

OK, I confess I cannot spell mush ..........

Subject: RE: Plough Monday - you couldn't make it up
From: GUEST,Chris in Clevedon
Date: 26 Jan 08 - 03:44 PM

several Somerset morris sides were over-booked for wassailing this year and some orchards had to go without. less of a tradition now and more of a fashion!

Subject: RE: Plough Monday - you couldn't make it up
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 05:29 AM

We don't have wassailers in Salford. We have wassailants...

:D

Subject: RE: Plough Monday - you couldn't make it up
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 07:01 PM

Our plough monday play was that good we have been "booked" by the pub we finished at to do it again in June!   presumably they will have recovered by then, by the way does any of the plough play make sense to anyone?

Subject: RE: Plough Monday - you couldn't make it up
From: Joe Offer
Date: 10 Jan 22 - 07:25 PM

OK, so Vikki Appleton Fielden says today is Plough Monday. Can somebody explain this to us?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plough_Monday

Penny for the Ploughboys: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHQ0km0JVbk

Subject: RE: Plough Monday - you couldn't make it up
From: Felipa
Date: 10 Jan 22 - 07:27 PM

Great to hear Vikki and partner sing for the occasion tonight on Mudcat singaround.

Subject: RE: Plough Monday - you couldn't make it up
From: GUEST,Essex Girl
Date: 12 Jan 22 - 11:31 AM

We did molly dancing around the pubs in Greenwich on Monday.

Subject: RE: Plough Monday - you couldn't make it up
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 12 Jan 22 - 04:19 PM

First Monday after 12th night, presumably a good date for ploughing to start in earnest after all the festivity. Or a good time to celebrate the plough, a very important implement.

Subject: RE: Plough Monday - you couldn't make it up
From: Rumncoke
Date: 12 Jan 22 - 06:02 PM

When I was younger they moved the timing of plough monday to the bank holiday for new year, as all the participants had jobs to go to....

Subject: RE: Plough Monday - you couldn't make it up
From: Joe Offer
Date: 09 Jan 23 - 06:36 PM

Needs to be refreshed today.

Subject: RE: Plough Monday - you couldn't make it up
From: Felipa
Date: 09 Jan 23 - 09:14 PM

as this Monday was Plough Monday

see associated song Come See the Boys Go Round