The Traditional Children's Games of England Scotland
& Ireland In Dictionary Form - Volume 1

With Tunes(sheet music), Singing-rhymes(lyrics), Methods Of Playing with diagrams and illustrations.

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	CURRANTS AND RAISINS—CUSHION DANCE 87
	wooing, and probably the action of the game has never been quite completed in the nursery. The verses are given as " nursery rhymes " by Halliwell, Nos. cccclxxxiii. and ccccxciv. The tune is from Rimbault's Nursery Rhymesy p. 70. The words given by him are the same as the Earls Heaton version. Currants and Raisins Currants and raisins a penny a pound. Three days holiday. This is a game played "running under a handkerchief;" "something like 'Oranges and Lemons.'"—Lincoln (Miss M. Peacock). Cushion Dance
	as is required. —Dancing Master, 1686. This music is exactly as it is printed in the book referred to. (b) The following is an account of the dance as it was known in Derbyshire amongst the farmers' sons and daughters and the domestics, all of whom were on a pretty fair equality, very different from what prevails in farm-houses of to-day. The ? Cushion Dance " was a famous old North-country amusement, and among the people of Northumberland it is still commonly observed. The dance was performed with boisterous fun, quite unlike the game as played in higher circles, where the conditions and rules of procedure were of a more refined order. The company were seated round the room, a fiddler occupy­ing a raised seat in a corner. When all were ready, two of the young men left the room, returning presently, one. carrying a large square cushion, the other an ordinary drinking-horn, china bowl, or silver tankard, according to the possessions of
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