an be found.

Though May-pole and Morris dancing were the most common, there were
other curious customs in different parts of the kingdom. In one place,
the Mayers went out very early to the woods, and gathering green
boughs, decorated every door with one. A house containing a sweetheart
had a branch of birch, the door of a scold was disgraced with alder,
and a slatternly person had the mortification to find a branch of a
nut-tree at hers, while the young people who overslept found their
doors closed by a nail over the latch.

In other places, wreaths were made on hoops, with a gayly dressed doll
in the middle of each, and carried about by girls, the little owners
singing a ballad which had been sung since the time of Queen Bess,--and
expecting a shower of pennies, of course.

In Dublin, the youths decorated a bush, four or five feet high, with
candles, which they lighted and danced around till burnt out. They then
lighted a huge bonfire, threw the bush on it, and continued their dance
around that. In other parts of Ireland, the boys had a mischievous
habit of running through the streets with bundles of nettles, with
which they struck the face and hands of every one they met. The sting
of nettle, perhaps you know, is a very uncomfortable pain. The same
people are very superstitious, and they believed that the power of the
Evil Eye was greater on the first of May than at any other time; and
they insured a good supply of milk for the year by putting a green
bough against the house, which is certainly an easy way. In old times,
the Druids drove all the cattle through the fire, to keep them from
diseases, and this custom still survives in parts of Ireland, where
many a peasant who owns a cow and a bit of straw is careful to do the
same.

In the Scottish Highlands, in the eighteenth century, the boys had a
curious custom. They would go to the moors outside of the town, make a
round table in the sod, by cutting a trench around it, deep enough for
them to sit down to their grassy table. On this table they would kindle
a fire and cook a custard of eggs and milk, and knead a cake of
oat-meal, which was toasted by the fire. After eating the custard, the
cake was cut into as many parts as there were boys; one piece was made
black with coal, and then all put into a cap. Each boy was in turn
blindfolded, and made to take a piece, and the one who selected the
black one was to be sacrificed to Baal, whose favor they wished to ask