curious customs among the Scotch Highlanders (who call May 1st
_Beltan_ Day) have nothing in common with our Green Festival except as
celebrating the Spring. They seem to be the remains of very ancient
heathen sacrifices to Baal. They were performed by the herdsmen of the
district, and included an open-air feast of cakes and custard, to which
every one contributed, and which was cooked upon a fire on a turf left
in the centre of a square trench which had been dug for the purpose.
Some custard was poured out by way of libation. Every one then took a
cake of oatmeal, on which nine knobs had been pinched up before baking,
and turning his face to the fire threw the knobs over his shoulder, some
as offerings to the supposed guardians of the flock, and the rest in
propitiation of beasts and birds of prey, with the form "This to thee,
O Fox! spare my lambs! This to thee, O hooded Crow!" &c. In some places
the boys of the hamlet met on the moors for a similar feast, but the
turf table was round, and the oatcake divided into bits, one of which
was blackened with charcoal. These being drawn from a bonnet, the holder
of the black bit was held _devoted_ to Baal, and had to leap three times
over the bonfire.

I do not know of any children's games that were peculiar to May-day. In
France they had a May-day game called _Sans-vert_. Those who played had
to wear leaves of the hornbeam-tree, and these were to be kept fresh,
under penalty of a fine. The chief object of the players was to surprise
each other without the proper leaves, or with faded specimens.

A stupid old English custom of making fools of your friends on the 1st
of May as well as on the 1st of April hardly deserves the title of a
game. The victims were called "May goslings."

One certainly would not expect to meet with anything like "Aunt Sally"
among May-day games, especially with the "May Lady" for butt! But not
the least curious part of a very curious account of May-day in
Huntingdonshire, which was sent to _Notes and Queries_ some years ago,
is the pelting of the May Lady as a final ceremony of the festival. The
May-garlands carried round in Huntingdonshire villages appear to have
been more like the "milkmaids' garland" than genuine wreaths. They were
four to five feet high, extinguisher-shaped, with every kind of spring
flower in the apex, and with ribbons and gay kerchiefs hanging down from
the base, by the round rim of which the garland was carried; the
flower-pe