- The Dancing Family
Pray let me introduce you to This little dancing family; For morning, afternoon, and night They danced away so happily. They twirled round about, They turned their toes out; The people wondered what the noise Could all be about. They danced from early morning, Till very late at night; Both in-doors and out-of-doors, With very great delight. And every sort of dance they knew, From every country far away; And so it was no wonder that They should keep dancing all the day. So dancing—dancing—dancing, In sunshine or in rain; And when they all left off, Why then—they all began again. - Rustic Merry-making
It is curious to find that even at so late a period as the time of Queen Mary, the shepherds still officiated at weddings and other merrymakings in their villages, so as to excite the jealousy of the professors of the joyous science. The accompanying wood-cut, from a MS. in the French National library, may represent such a rustic merry-making. - Mediæval Dance
In the illustration, of early fourteenth-century date, the scene of the dance is not indicated; the minstrels themselves appear to be joining in the saltitation which they inspire. - A Dance in the Gallery
In the illustration, reproduced from Mr. Wright’s “Domestic Manners of the English,” we have a curious picture of a dance, possibly in the gallery, which occupied the whole length of the roof of most fifteenth-century houses; it is from a MS. of fifteenth-century date. In all these instances the minstrels are on the floor with the dancers, but in the latter part of the Middle Ages they were probably—especially on festal occasions—placed in the music gallery over the screens, or entrance-passage, of the hall.