Ah, January 6th. A day that many of us stateside recall for unsavory reasons. But may I present a new cause célèbre? Friends, what if I told you today was not Coup Day, nor Failed Insurrection Day, nor even the standard Mad-to-Be-Fully-Back-to-Work Day, but….Plough Monday?
“WTF,” might be your reasonable response. Hold my mead and allow me to blow your mind. Though it never quite migrated to this side of the pond, in wackier previous centuries, rural English people celebrated the first Monday after Epiphany with a nutty little festival full of pranks and pageants and snacks. Amelia Soth at JStor Daily paints a picture:
Imagine you’re hanging out at home somewhere in Yorkshire, 1814. You hear a knock and open the door to find a motley procession. At the head marches a dignified pair dressed in their best clothes: the “King and Queen.” Behind them come a company of sword-bearers dressed in military-style uniforms and dancing a practiced routine to the sound of a fiddle.
And that was just the beginning. Of Plough Day.
Per custom, the royal procession was followed by more of your neighbors in costume. Because one day a year, folks forsook chores and people-clothes to play the oxen, the hobby-horse, the Fool, the Straw Bear, the little old couple covered in soot, or the collector—who came with a donation box (and thus the long end of the stick).
This parade of up to a hundred characters(!) would come to your house, perform little shows, and then demand a treat. Specifically? A “hot beer, syrupy-sweet with brown sugar and ginger.” And just like on its sister holiday, Halloween, those who refused to comply with this custom risked violation of their personal property.
If you failed to pay the pipers, your garden could get torn up. Your gate removed. Or according to Toth, revelers “might take a jug of water and lean it up against your stoop so it would spill everywhere as soon as you opened your door.” Tee-hee.
The holiday predates Christianity, and may have origins as either a pagan celebration or a Danish import. Historians disagree. Either way, it’s stood the test of time as a marker for the beginning of the English agricultural year.
For my money? A whimsical traveling party that involves plays and effectively, butterbeer, feels like a much better way to mark the new year than forcing yourself to stay awake til some haircut drops a ball. So happy Plough Day, good people!
Though if you see the hobby-horse, Toth adds a word to the wise. “Don’t grab the tail: there are fishhooks and nails hidden behind the hairs.”
Image via NYPL
