choose one of their playmates to be Little Leaf Man. They break branches
from the trees and twine them about the child, till only his shoes are
left peeping out. Two of the other children lead him for fear he should
stumble. They take him singing and dancing from house to house, asking
for gifts of food, such as eggs, cream, sausages, cakes. Finally, they
sprinkle the Leaf Man with water and feast on the food. Such a Leaf Man
is our English Jack-in-the-Green, a chimney-sweeper who, as late as
1892, was seen by Dr. Rouse walking about at Cheltenham encased in a
wooden framework covered with greenery.

The bringing in of the new leafage in the form of a tree or flowers is
one, and perhaps the simplest, form of spring festival. It takes little
notice of death and winter, uttering and emphasizing only the desire for
the joy in life and spring. But in other and severer climates the
emotion is fiercer and more complex; it takes the form of a struggle or
contest, what the Greeks called an _agon_. Thus on May Day in the Isle
of Man a Queen of the May was chosen, and with her twenty maids of
honour, together with a troop of young men for escort. But there was not
only a Queen of the May, but a Queen of Winter, a man dressed as a
woman, loaded with warm clothes and wearing a woollen hood and fur
tippet. Winter, too, had attendants like the Queen of the May. The two
troops met and fought; and whichever Queen was taken prisoner had to pay
the expenses of the feast.

In the Isle of Man the real gist of the ceremony is quite forgotten, it
has become a mere play. But among the Esquimaux[15] there is still
carried on a similar rite, and its magical intent is clearly understood.
In autumn, when the storms begin and the long and dismal Arctic winter
is at hand, the central Esquimaux divide themselves into two parties
called the Ptarmigans and the Ducks. The ptarmigans are the people born