Editing Plough Monday (section)

==Modern observances==
[[File:Straw Bear.jpg|thumb|150px|Whittlesey Straw Bear]]
Plough Monday customs declined in the 19th century.  The advent of mechanised farming meant that agricultural workers were less numerous and relatively better paid, and thus did not have to beg for money in the winter.<ref name=Hutton-132-133/>  Additionally, the rowdy and threatening behaviour of the plough gangs was increasingly controversial in this period, and there was pressure from authorities to stop, or moderate their excesses.<ref>{{cite book|last=Roud|first=Stephen|title=The English Year: A Month-by-Month Guide to the Nation's Customs and Festivals, from May Day to Mischief Night|year=2006|publisher=Penguin|page=21}}</ref> Though some Plough Monday customs continued into the 1930s, they did not continue past the beginning of the Second World War.<ref name=Hutton-132-133/>

From the 1960s, Plough Monday customs began to be revived following the [[second British folk revival]].<ref name=Hutton-132-133>{{cite book|last=Hutton|first=Ronald|title=The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in England|year=1996|publisher=Oxford University Press|pages=132–133}}</ref>  In 1972, the tradition of traveling around the village with a plough to collect money was revived at [[Balsham, Cambridgeshire|Balsham]] in Cambridgeshire.<ref>{{cite news|title=Balsham to Mark 50 Years Since Plough Monday Revival|publisher=BBC News|date=9 January 2022|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-59894628|access-date=9 May 2024}}</ref> Subsequently, the Cambridge Morris Men revived the practice of Plough Monday [[molly dancing]] in 1977.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Irvine|first=Richard D. G.|title=Following the Bear: The revival of Plough Monday traditions and the performance of rural identity in the East Anglian fenlands|journal=Ethnoscripts|year=2018|volume=20|issue=1|page=20}}</ref>  

===Whittlesey Straw Bear festival===
In the Cambridgeshire villages of [[Ramsey, Cambridgeshire|Ramsey]] and [[Whittlesey]] during the nineteenth century, on Plough Monday or Tuesday men or boys would dress in a layer of straw and were known as straw bears, who went door to door dancing for money. The tradition, which died out around the time of the First World War, was revived in 1980 at Whittlesey.<ref>{{cite book|last=Roud|first=Stephen|title=The English Year: A Month-by-Month Guide to the Nation's Customs and Festivals, from May Day to Mischief Night|year=2006|publisher=Penguin|pages=24–25}}</ref>  The revived tradition is practiced annually on the Saturday before Plough Monday, when a straw bear is paraded through the village's streets.<ref>[http://projectbritain.com/ploughMonday.htm Project Britain]</ref>

===Goathland Plough Stots===
{{main|Goathland Plough Stots}}
In the village of [[Goathland]] in North Yorkshire, Plough Monday was traditionally celebrated with a plough procession, mummers' play, and sword dancing.  In 1913 [[Cecil Sharp]] visited Goathland but was unable to find anyone who remembered the sword dance, last performed around 1868. Inspired by Sharp's work, the dance was revived for Plough Monday in 1923. Since the revival the sword dance has become the main feature of the tradition, and continues to be performed on the Saturday following Plough Monday.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Schofield|first=Derek|title=The English Long Sword Dance: A Comparison Between Two Contemporary Traditional Teams|year=1991|journal=Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae|volume=33|issue=1|jstor=902454|pages=321–322}}</ref> Money collected by the sword dancers at Goathland was originally used to buy food and drink for the "finish-up feast" at the end of the celebration; more recently it has been donated to the local hospital and lifeboat station.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ridden |first1=Geoffrey |title=The Goathland Plough Monday Customs |journal=Folk Music Journal |date=1974 |volume=2 |issue=5 |page=358 |publisher=English Folk Dance and Song Society |location=London |issn=0531-9684}}</ref>