People dressed as straw bears paraded through the English village of Whittlesey in Cambridgeshire on Sunday to mark a bizarre local tradition.<br /><br />Participants could be seen dancing through the streets wrapped all over in straw so that they resembled - at least somewhat - bears.<br /><br />According to the filmer, the earliest reports of the event trace back to 1882 when hard-up ploughmen paraded a straw bear around the town for beer, tobacco and beef. <br /><br />The tradition was stopped in 1909 but revived 1980 by the Whittlesey Society.
