Whittlesea Straw Bear
The festival of the Straw Bear or "Strawbower" is an old custom known only from a small area of Fenland on the borders of Huntingdonshire and Cambridgeshire, including Ramsey Mereside. (Similar ritual animals have been known in other parts of Europe, and still appear in parts of Germany at Shrovetide.)
On Plough Tuesday, the day after Plough Monday (the first Monday after Twelfth Night), a man or boy was covered from head to foot in straw and led from house to house where he would dance in exchange for gifts of money, food or beer. The festival was of a stature that farmers would often reserve their best straw for the making of the bear.
The custom died out early in the 20th century, c.1909 (probably because the local police regarded it as begging), but it was resurrected by the Whittlesea Society in 1980.
The festival has now expanded to cover the whole weekend when the Bear appears (not Plough Tuesday nowadays, but the second weekend in January instead). On the Saturday of the festival, the Bear processes around the streets with its attendant "keeper" and musicians, followed by numerous traditional dance sides (mostly visitors), including morris men and women, molly dancers, rapper and longsword dancers, clog dancers and others, who perform at various points along the route.
The Bear dances to a tune (reminiscent of the hymn Jesus Bids us Shine) which featured on Rattlebone and Ploughjack, a 1976 LP by Ashley Hutchings, along with a spoken description of the original custom (which partly inspired the Whittlesey revival).
'Sessions' of traditional music take place in many of the public houses during the day and evening, and a barn dance or ceilidh and a Cajun dance round off the Saturday night. The bear "costume" is burned at a ceremony on Sunday lunchtime (just as, in Germany, the Shrovetide bear costumes are also ceremonially burned after use).)
The Whittlesea Straw Bear and Keeper are featured on the album art of The Young Knives album, Voices of Animals and Men.
Read more about this topic: Whittlesey
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