The following accounts are taken from George Frampton’s book, More Honoured in The Breach Than The Observance, Molly Dancing and other Plough Monday customs in Cambridgeshire. Tradition and Revival.

Plough Monday customs were recorded in Whittlesey as early as 1542 and was reported in the 1840’s as follows:

“The first Monday after Epiphany, when the plough was supposed to be able to enter in its spring operations, was still observed as Plough Monday, though its observance was not regarded with much favour by our elders. We youngsters were often awakened early in the morning by the sounds of shrieks and giggling and scuffling in the kitchen regions, bedizened in ribbons, with blackened faces - one of them dubbed the “plough-witch”, dressed as a woman, making horse play before the maids, cracking their uncouth jokes, and soliciting largess with a long wooden spoon. Sometimes they dragged witht hem from door to door a plough. After their early morning antics, the day was spent in revelry. on the following day, men swathed from head to foot in wisps of straw “straw bears” as they were called made merry in like manner”

Whittlesey ,1859, Peterborough Advertiser

“Whittlesea was completely  overrun on Plough Monday by numbers of men and boys facetiously miscalling themselves plough witches. Dirty faces seemed to be the premier qualification, combined with a necessary share of impudence. on the following day, the same parties enveloped in straw wisps and denominating themselves straw bears levied blackmail with intolerable impartiality on the inhabitants.”

Molly Dancing and the Straw Bear were reported in Whittlesey intermittently throughout the late 1800’s. It is thought that the custom died out around 1909 due to altercations with the police:

Whittlesey, 1909, Prof Moore-Smith

“When I was in Whittlesey yesterday (January 11th 1909) I had the pleasure of meeting a straw bear, if not two in the street. I had not been in Whittlesey on the day for nearly forty years, and feared that the custom had died out.

In my boyhood, the straw bear was a man completely swathed in straw, led by a string by another and made to dance infront of people’s houses, in return for which money was expected. This always took place on the Tuesday following Plough Monday. Yesterday the “straw bear” was a boy, and I saw no dancing otherwise there was no change. I was told that two years ago a zealous inspector of police has forbidden straw bears as a form of cadging, and my informant said he thought that in many places they had been stopped by the police. He also said that at Whittlesey, the police had prevented the people on Plough Monday, from taking round the plough, as they always did when I was a boy.”