One of the mummers generally wears a fox’s skin in the form of a hood; but beyond the laughter the tail that hangs down his back awakens by its motion as he dances, we are at a loss to find a meaning. Bessy formerly wore a bullock’s tail behind, under his gown, and which he held in his hand while dancing, but that appendage has not been worn of late.
Norfolk.
Hone’s Year Book, p. 29, gives a quotation from a Briefe Relation, &c., 1646, wherein the writer says, that the Monday after Twelfth Day is called “Plowlick Monday” by the husbandmen in Norfolk, “because on that day they doe first begin to plough.”
Northamptonshire.
In the northern and eastern parts of the county Plough Monday is more noticed than in the neighbourhood of Northampton. The pageant varies in different places; sometimes five persons precede the plough, which is drawn by a number of boys with their faces blackened and reddled. Formerly, when the pageant was of a more important character than now, the plough was drawn by oxen decorated with ribbons. The one who walks first in the procession is styled the Master, and is grotesquely attired, having on a large wig; two are gaily bedizened in women’s clothes; and two others have large hunches on their backs, on which is sewed the knave of hearts. These two are called Red Jacks, or fools. Each of the five carries a besom, and one of them a box, which he rattles assiduously among the spectators to obtain their donations, which are spent at night in conviviality and jollification. In some instances they plough up the soil in front of the houses of such persons as refuse their contributions. Before the inclosure of open fields, there was another custom in connection with the day. When the ploughman returned from his labours in the evening, the servant-maid used to meet him with a jug of toast and ale; and if he could succeed in throwing his plough-hatchet into the house before she reached the door, he was entitled to a cock to throw at Shrovetide; but if she was able to present him with the toast and ale first, then she gained the cock. (See [page 38].)—Baker’s Northamptonshire Words and Phrases, 1854, ii. 1257.
Yorkshire.
On the Monday after Twelfth Day, says Clarkson (Hist. of Richmond, 1821, p. 293), a number of young men from the country, yoked to a plough, drag it about the streets, begging money, in allusion to the labours of the plough having ceased in that severe weather. In like manner the watermen in London, when the Thames is covered with ice in hard frosts, haul a boat about the streets, to show that they are deprived of the means of earning their livelihood.
