(c) Selden, in his Table Talk, thus refers to this game:—“The Court of England is much altered. At a solemn dancing first you have the grave measures, then the Cervantoes and the Golliards, and this is kept up with ceremony. At length to Trenchmore and the Cushion Dance; and then all the company dance, lord and groom, lady and kitchen-maid, no distinction. But in King Charles’s time there has been nothing but Trenchmore and the Cushion Dance,” &c. The “Whishin Dance” (an old-fashioned dance, in which a cushion is used to kneel upon), mentioned by Dickinson (Cumberland Glossary), is probably the same game or dance, “whishin” meaning cushion. Brockett (North Country Words) mentions “Peas Straw,” the final dance at a rustic party; something similar to the ancient “Cushion Dance” at weddings. It is also recorded in Evans’ Leicestershire Glossary, and by Burton in the following passage from the Anatomy of Melancholy: “A friend of his reprehended him for dancing beside his dignity, belike at some cushen dance.” In the version from East Kirkby, Lincolnshire, the expression “in our degree” in the first line of the verse is apparently meaningless, and it is probably a corruption of “highdigees, highdegrees,” a dialect word for roystering, high spirits, merriment, dancing, romping. Elworthy (Somerset Words) gives this word, and quotes the following line from Drayton:—
Dance many a merry round and many a highdegy.
—Polyolbion, Bk. xxv., l. 1162.
(d) The transition from a dance to a pure game is well illustrated by the different versions, and the connection of the dance with the ceremony of marriage is obvious. A curious account of the merry-makings at marriages is given in Coverdale’s Christen State of Matrimony, 1543: “After the banket and feast there beginneth a mad and unmannerly fashion; for the bride must be brought into an open dauncing-place. Then is there such a running, leaping, and flinging among them that a man might think all these dauncers had cast all shame behinde them, and were become starke mad, and out of their wits, and that they were sworne to the devil’s daunce. Then must the bride keep foote with all dauncers, and refuse none, how scabbed, foule, drunken, rude, and shameless soever he be. . . . After supper must they begin to pipe and daunce again of anew. And though the young persons come once towards their rest, yet can they have no quietness.”—1575 edit., fol. 59, rev. 60. Edward L. Rimbault, writing in Notes and Queries, vi. 586, says it was formerly the custom at weddings, both of the rich as well as the poor, to dance after dinner and supper. In an old Court masque of James I.’s time, performed at the marriage ceremony of Philip Herbert and Lady Susan (MS. in the writer’s possession), it is directed that, at the conclusion of the performance, “after supper” the company “dance a round dance.” This was “dancing the bride to bed.” William Chappell (Notes and Queries, ii. 442) says, “I have a tune called ‘A round dance to dance the bride to bed.’ It dates from about 1630, or earlier, and resembles that of ‘The Hunt is up.’” Dancing was considered so essential at weddings (according to Grose) that if in a family the youngest daughter should chance to be married before her elder sisters, they must dance at her wedding without shoes. May not the custom of throwing of old and worn-out shoes after the bride have arisen from the practice of dancing? The danced-out shoes may have been the ones used. It is curious that the cushion is used in the marriage ceremonies of the Brahmins. Mr. Kearns, in his Marriage Ceremonies of the Hindoos of the South of India, p. 6, says that a stool or cushion is one of the preparations for the reception of the bridegroom, who on entering the apartment sits down on the stool which is presented to him. He says, “I step on this for the sake of food and other benefits, on this variously splendid footstool.” The bride’s father then presents to him a cushion made of twenty leaves of cúsa grass, holding it up with both hands and exclaiming, “The cushion! the cushion! the cushion!” The bridegroom replies, “I accept the cushion,” and taking it, places it on the ground under his feet, while he recites a prayer. It is probable that we may have in the “Cushion Dance” the last relics of a very ancient ceremony, as well as evidence of the origin of a game from custom.
Cutch-a-Cutchoo
Children clasp their hands under their knees in a sitting posture, and jump thus about the room. The one who keeps up longest wins the game.—Dublin (Mrs. Lincoln).
(b) In Notes and Queries, x. 17, “E. D.” says this amusement was fashionable sixty years ago, and from the low dresses worn then by ladies he mentions its indecency. He gives extracts from a satire called Cutchacutchoo, or the Jostling of the Innocents, 2nd ed., Dublin, in which the game and position are mentioned—
Now she with tone tremendous cries
Cutchacutchoo.
Let each squat down upon her ham,
Jump like a goat, puck like a ram.
“Uneda,” at same reference (x. 17), speaks of it as a known game in Philadelphia. The analogy which this game has to some savage dances is curious; a correspondent in Notes and Queries, ix. 304, draws attention to the illustration, in Richardson’s Expedition to Arctic Shores (vol. i. p. 397), of a dance by the “Kutchin-Kutcha” Indians, a parallel to the name as well as the dance which needs some research in America.
See “[Curcuddie],” “[Hop-frog].”