Plough Sunday is a traditional English celebration of the beginning of the agricultural year that has seen some revival over recent years. Plough Sunday celebrations usually involve bringing a ploughshare into a church with prayers for the blessing of the land. It is traditionally held on the Sunday after Epiphany, the Sunday between 7 January and 13 January. Accordingly, work in the fields did not begin until the day after Plough Sunday: Plough Monday.
As well as a ploughshare, in rural areas, it is common for local farmers to attend the service with their tractors - both new and old (see photo).
Famous quotes containing the words plough and/or sunday:
“With plough and spade, and hoe and loom,
Trace your grave, and build your tomb,
And weave your winding-sheet, till fair
England be your sepulchre.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
“It was a Sunday afternoon, wet and cheerless; and a duller spectacle this earth of ours has not to show than a rainy Sunday in London.”
—Thomas De Quincey (1785–1859)