In the 16th and 17th centuries in England people would make garlands of flowers and leaves for the May Day celebration.
After becoming a source of competition between Works Guilds, these garlands became increasingly elaborate, to the extent that it covered the entire man.
This became known as Boys in the Wood.
By the turn of the 19th century the custom had started to wane as a result of the Victorian disapproval of bawdy and anarchic behaviour.
The Lord and Lady of the May, with their practical jokes, were replaced by a pretty May Queen, while the noisy, drunken Boys in the Wood vanished altogether from the parades....
