https://vo.rs/tags/whittlesey/Latest from the Whittlesey desk at vo.rs.Hugo -- gohugo.ioenThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.Sat, 11 Jan 2020 12:09:00 +0000https://vo.rs/encore/the-straw-bear-festival-whittlesea/<p>Every January in the Cambridgeshire fen town of Whittlesey, a man disappears completely inside a costume of woven straw, from a pointed hood down to his boots, and dances through the streets behind a brass band while a crowd of morris sides and mummers follow along. By the evening, that straw costume is set alight and burned to nothing in front of everyone who came to watch. The Straw Bear Festival is one of the odder surviving pieces of English winter custom, and it is odder still for having been formally banned by the police within living memory before the town simply brought it back.</p>Sat, 11 Jan 2020 12:09:00 +0000