On the first day of the new agricultural year, thirty or forty men, stripped to their clean white shirts, decorated with gay-coloured ribbons tied in large knots and bows, drag along a plough. The old English festival, Plough Monday was the first Monday after 6th January and was the day on which things would return to normal after the Twelve Days of Christmas as people returned to work.
They are accompanied by musicians and Morris-dancers. They are usually accompanied by an old woman, a boy or a humorous countryman to represent a fool who carries a box to collect money from the spectators.
