There is not space to describe more of these ring dances here, but there are many of them, and a great many which our English children would do well to adopt.
Our good old street game of “Hop-scotch” you may see played almost anywhere in Norway under the somewhat curious name of “Hop-in-Paradise,” while in some parts “Cat’s Cradle,” though a milder form of amusement, is quite popular, and a large variety of figures is known.
Then the girls are very fond of dressing up as brides, with crowns and all, and having a mock wedding, with its accompanying procession and dancing. Above all things they love dancing, and their fathers and grandfathers play the fiddle for them for many an hour of a winter’s evening, while the mothers sing nursery rhymes to the smaller children. And, as with the games, these jingles are more or less the same as our own. They have “This is the house that Jack built,” with the malt, and the rat, and everything, only that they prefer the name Jacob to Jack. They have “Fly away, Peter, fly away, Paul”; and the baby on his mother’s knee has the joy of being shaken about to “This is the way the farmer rides, bumpety-bumpety-bump.”
A Baby of Telemarken
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