Molly dance

[12] Unemployed farmworkers danced both to entertain themselves and as a way of making some money in a season where there was little demand for agricultural labour.

[11] In some cases, the money raised was used for charity – as for instance in Brandon Creek, near Littleport, where until the 1850s it was used to buy food for local widows.

[13] Molly dancers dressed in ordinary clothes decorated with ribbons and rosettes, wore top hats, and blacked their faces as a form of disguise.

[12] The Molly team seen by William Palmer at Little Downham in 1933 consisted of six men, one dressed as a woman; of the remaining five, one carried a broom and money box, and one played the accordion.

The largest regular assemblage of Molly dancers is at the Whittlesea Straw Bear Festival, established 1980, which is held in Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire, every January.

Elaine Bradtke wrote a PhD thesis on the inherent post-modernism of the Seven Champions, one of the first and best examples of modern Molly dance.