T.F.Ordish (1893)
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8
Plough Monday. (1st Monday after Jan 6th).
"plough Bullocks" (Lincolnshire)
Notts.
"Plough Stots" (Yorkshire)
p.166. It is with great pleasure that I bring to your notice now
a version of the Plough-Monday play which has been
communicated to me by Mrs. Chaworth Musters, along
with the most interesting dress worn by the actors of this
version as repeatedly witnessed by Mrs. Chaworth Musters
at her residence, Wiverton Hall, near Bingham, Nottingham-
shire. The version wears a modern look, but, like the
hobby-horse performances just noticed, it has its elements
of archaism which persist. I should like first to read an
extract from a letter I received from Mrs. Musters, as it is
in effect a message to the Society, and brings before us the
aspects of the play as they impressed themselves on an
eye-witness :-
"I hope that if all is well another year, I may have the
pleasure of seeing some members of the Folk-lore Society here
for Plough-Monday, and I hope the play will not die out in
this neighbourhood for long, as the actors this time were all youths
who had learnt their parts by word of mouth. I had some
difficulty in getting a copy of the words a few years ago, as it seems
never to have been written down; but I did get it, very ill-spelt
and difficult to make out, except that I had heard it several times,
and I had it printed in the appendix of a Notts story I wrote, so
that it might be preserved. I enclose the book. The same
version seems to be known in Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, and
Northamptonshire. I wish I could have got a photograph of the
performers, but they could only come in the evening being farm
[-- page break --]
English Folk-Drama. 167
labourers. The man who is called' Hopper Joe' has a basket
slung before him, as if he was going to sow seeds, in which you
put any money you like to give. The sergeant gets hold of any
bit of old uniform he can meet with, and the young lady always
has a veil, Beelzebub a blacked face, and either a besom of
straw or a club, with a bladder fastened to the end of it. The
chief feature of the play is the raising to life of the old woman (who
is knocked down by Beelzebub) by the doctor, who is always
dressed in the smartest modern clothes, with a riding-whip and
top hat if possible. This year the men had no cut-out figures on
their shirts, only ribbons and rosettes and feathers stuck in their
hats, and the brass ornaments of their horse's harness hanging
down in front. But I have generally seen them with small horses,
and ploughs in red and black, stuck on. They do not bring a
plough with them here. Little boys with ribbons on come round
begging in all the villages in the vale of Belvoir here, on Plough-
Monday, but no women or girls ever seem to take part in it."
Mrs. Musters subsequently sent me the dress exhibited.
In a letter which accompanied it she said: "The group of
men are intended to represent the Plough-Monday boys .
. . . . . . . . The idea of the man who made it is that all the
live creatures connected with a farm ought to be repre-
sented." Mrs. Musters also sent me a copy of the verses
sung on the occasion of the play. These have never before
been recorded. I exhibit the MS. of the Ploughman who
sang them on Plough-Monday last, and who wrote them
down for Mrs. Musters.
[-- page break --]
Lincolnshire English Folk-Drama. 169
In Lincolnshire, representatives of all the
branches of farming industry joined the procession. First
came the plough, to which it was not unusual to see as
many as a score of sons of the soil yoke themselves;
hence the name Plough Bullocks applied to them, or, in
Yorkshire, Plough Stotts. Ploughmen from neighbour-
ing hamlets joined the procession, dressed in clean smock-
frocks,decked out with ribbons by the maids. Some
wore bunches of corn in their hats. Often "the procession
was joined by threshers carrying their flails, reapers with
sickles, and carters with their long whips, which they were
ever cracking to add to the noise; while even the smith
and the miller were among their number, for the one
sharpened the ploughshare, and the other ground the corn."
Here we have the idea of representation which we see in
the dress exhibited.
The same eye-witness gives a description of a curious
custom in connection with Plough-Monday, which I give
in his words, as follows:- "But the great event of the
day was when they came before some house which bore
signs that the owner was well-to-do in the world, and
nothing was given them. Bessy rattled his box and the
ploughmen danced, while the country lads blew their
bullocks' horns or shouted with all their might; but, if
there was still no sign, no coming forth of either bread-
and-cheese or ale, then the word was given, the ploughshare
driven into the ground before the door or window,
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.......
[-- break --]
169. We are not aware that the ploughmen were ever sum-
moned to answer for such a breach of the law, for they
believe, to use their own expressive language, 'they can
stand by It, and no law in the world can touch 'em, 'cause
It s an old charter'."
One of the mummers in the Lincolnshire Plough-Monday
procession usually wears a fox's skin in the form of a hood;
[-- break --]
170 the Bessy, a bullock's tail- behind, under his gown, which he
held in his hand while dancing.
From a rare book, dated in 1814, I have the following
note of the custom in Yorkshire:
"THE FOOL PLOUGH. - This is the name given to it by Strutt,
though it is better known in Yorkshire under the title of 'Plough
Stotts'. Plough-Monday, or the first Monday after Twelfth-Day,
has been considered as the ploughman's holiday, and the annexed
plate reprsents a ludicrous procession on that day, not unlike
that of the Mummers, or Morris-Dancers, at Christmas. The
principal characters in this farce are the conductors of the plough;
the plough-driver, with a blown bladder at the end of a stick by
way of whip; the fiddler; a huge clown in female attire; and the
commander-in-chief, 'Captain Cauf Tail', dressed out with a
cockade and a genuine calf's tail, fantastically crossed with various
coloured ribands. This whimsical hero is also an orator and
a dancer, and is ably supported by the manual wit of the
plough-driver, who applies the bladder with great and sounding
effect to the heads and shoulders of his team."
With this formless procession and dance the sword-dance
became combined, as described in Young's History of
Whitby, and the result of the union was the Plough-
Monday play.
T. Fairman Ordish on English Folk-dram (II)
in FL. vol.iv. 149-175.
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