Staffordshire.
At Uttoxeter groups of children carry garlands of flowers about the town. The garlands consist of two hoops, one passing through the other, which give the appearance of four half circles, and they are decorated with flowers and evergreens and surmounted with a bunch of flowers as a sort of crown, and in the centre of the hoops is a pendent orange and flowers. Mostly one or more of the children carry a little pole or stick, with a collection of flowers tied together at one end, and carried vertically, and the children themselves are adorned with ribbons and flowers. Thus they go from house to house, which they are encouraged to do by the pence they obtain.—Redfern, History of Uttoxeter, 1865, p. 262.