carried the garland, and were followed by a boy and girl called
"Lord and Lady," linked together by a white handkerchief, of which each
held an end. The Lady carried the purse, and when she received a
donation the Lord doffed his cap and kissed her. They sang a doggerel
rhyme, and the form in which money was asked was, "Please to handsel the
Lord and Lady's purse."

One cannot help thinking that some of our flowers, such as Milkmaids,
Lords and Ladies, and Jack-in-the-green Primrose, bear traces of having
got their common names at the great flower festival of the year.

In Cornwall boys carried the May-garland, which was adorned with painted
birds' eggs. Old custom gave these young rogues the privilege of
drenching with water from a bucket any one whom they caught abroad on
May-morning without a sprig of May.

Mr. Aubrey says (1686): "At Oxford, the boyes do blow cows' horns all
night; and on May-day the young maids of every parish carry about their
parish garlands of flowers, which afterwards they hang up in their
churches."

A generation or more ago the little boys of Oxford used to blow horns
early on May-day--as they said--"to call up the old maids." There was
once a custom in Lynn for the workhouse children to be allowed to go out
with horns and garlands every May-day, after which a certain worthy
gentleman gave them a good dinner.

In Cambridgeshire, within the present century, the children had a doll
dressed as the "May Lady," before which they set a table with wine and
food on it; they also begged money and garlands for "the poor May Lady."

There are some quaint superstitions connected with May-day and
May-blossom. To bathe the face in the dew of a May morning was reckoned
an infallible recipe for a good complexion. A bath of May dew was also
supposed to strengthen weakly children. Girls divined for dreams of
their future husbands with a sprig of hawthorn gathered before dusk on
May-eve, and carried home in the mouth without speaking. Hawthorn rods
were used at all seasons of the year to divine for water and minerals.
Bunches of May fastened against houses were supposed to keep away
witches and venomous reptiles, and to bring prosperity in various
shapes.

The Irish of the neighbourhood of Killarney have a pretty superstition
that on May-day the O'Donoghue, a popular prince of by-gone days,
returns from the land of Immortal Youth beneath the water to bless the
country over which he once ruled.

Some