The tune `Hanskin' , which occurs in Queen Elizabeth's Virginal Book and also in The Dancing Master , may also be connected with this dance .sx `Half Hannikin' is printed in the first edition of Playford's Dancing Master , 1650 , and later issues , and Playford was a Scot , as will be remembered .sx It is a somewhat puzzling title .sx The name Hannikin ( little Hans ) appears to be of Dutch or Flemish origin , like Lambekyn ( little Lambert ) and various other Christian names ending in `kin' .sx Thinking that our correspondent and contributor , Dr. Elise Van der ven-ten Bensel , might be able to identify `Half Hannikin' as a tune of Dutch origin , I wrote to her to make inquiry .sx She told me in her reply that in Van Duyse's collection of old Dutch songs and dances ( Het oude Nederlandsche Lied , Antwerp , 1908 ) there are four different songs about Hansken or Hanselijn or Hanneken .sx The first part of the tune of one of them , Klaaglied van een Yongman , genaemt Hansken van Antwerpen ( Complaint of a youth named Hansken , &c .sx ) , is not unlike `Half Hannikin' , though the rest of the tune is quite different .sx This tune , says my informant , has always been very popular in the Low Countries ( it is also a church hymn ) , and she suggests the possibility that the first and simpler half of the tune only might have been taken to England , thus accounting for the `Half' of the title this of course only being a `guess' .sx `Half Hannikin' is set in the Dancing Master to a common type of longways dance , but one would not expect in a `dancing master's' collection to find directions for performing any sort of booby dance , even though the tune had been derived from such .sx It is here given , and it will be seen that the `Hinkum Booby' words , as I have already said , would fit it with but slight accommodation on the part of the tune , and .sx that the rhythm quietens down after the double-bar , just where in `Hinkum Booby' the dancer would pause , putting his `right hand in , left hand out' the tripping movement of the melody being resumed where the dancer would wheel round with `Hinkum booby , round about' .sx Chambers's first verse is conjecturally placed under the tune .sx He describes the dance thus :sx With the first line the dancers , in a circle with clasped hands , move a little sideways and back again , beating time ( which is slow ) with their feet .sx At the second line each claps his hand ( sic ) and wheels grotesquely round while singing .sx At the third , the action is suited to the word , still beating the time .sx Repeat the wheeling action as before to `Hinkum booby , round about' .sx For the other verses there follow L. hands in , R. hands out ; L. and R. feet in turn ; heads and backs similarly ; `A' feet in and nae feet out' , sitting down with the feet stretched into the ring , but springing up again promptly for the wheel round ; `Shake hands a' ' ; and finally `Goodnight a' ' , the boys bowing and the girls curtsying with exaggerated formality .sx `Looby' or `Lubin loo' seems to be a later offshoot of this , to a different tune .sx The meaning of `looby' has already been noticed .sx One suspects that `Lubin' was introduced about the time of `My mother bids me bind my hair' as a more elegant substitute for `looby' , and that `Here we dance Lubin' may have been an attempt to restore `Hallaby looby loo' to sense .sx As I used to see `Lubin' danced and it used to be a favourite amusement in my childhood at children's parties in Scottish circles it was quite a pretty and amusing dance , devoid of the clownishness which might have characterized it amongst older and more self-conscious folk .sx W. W. Newell observed the same drawing-room versus street versions in America .sx He gives a polite version beginning `Put your right elbow in' and says that `sixty years ago' it was danced .sx deliberately and decorously , with slow rhythmical motion , but had become a romp under the name `Ugly Mug' .sx I give the tune as I knew it and sang it .sx It is obviously founded on an old nineeight country-dance tune .sx The dancers only stopped circling round to perform the actions in each verse and `turn themselves .sx about' .sx But in one version I have come across the actions were cumulative which would probably lead to laughter and collapse in the end .sx Then follow `left hand' , `right foot' , `left foot' , `right ear' ( grasped by finger and thumb ) , `left ear' , `noses' , ad lib .sx The Grayrigg version was similar though the tune differed :sx But amongst children playing in the streets of Scottish towns and .sx villages the dance has degenerated into a wild rush round with clasped hands , and at the end of the tune a vigorous kick into the circle to a high-pitched ejaculation Teuch !sx ' ( guttural `ch' ) or `Ch !sx ' One is tempted to inquire whether `Hallabi looby loo' has any connexion with , or may indicate the source of , `hullabaloo' , or `hallibaloo' ( there are various dialect or colloquial forms ) in the same way that `hunsup' which was originally the 'hunt's-up' tune of arousal played at the door in the small hours of Christmas morning by a fiddler accompanied by a somewhat roisterous company of well-wishers came to mean in Cumberland and Westmorland simply a disturbance , or a row that somebody was kicking up 'a bonny hunsup , faith !sx ' The Scottish `Looby' tune was also used for another wild ring-game with a shout at the end :sx Other versions of `Looby' will be found in Lady Gomme's .sx Traditional Games , Walter Crane's Baby's Bouquet , Miss Mason's Nursery Rhymes , F. Kidson's Eighty Singing Games , Kerr's Guild of Play , &c .sx But I think that Chambers's `Hinkum Booby' probably represents the oldest form of this `antic' or `clown' dance now recoverable .sx 2 .sx CURCUDDIE .sx THE TROLL DANCE .sx I have ventured to call .sx `Curcuddie' a troll dance because of the Shetland legend connected with it .sx It is now a hopping game or dance on the `hunkers' , i.e. in a crouching position , with the arms akimbo .sx The verse which belongs to it is given by Chambers thus :sx The dancers sang the verse and danced independently , throwing out their feet and jumping sideways while striving to keep their balance .sx Jamieson derives `Curcuddie' from `curr' , to sit on the haunches ; adding a suggestion that `cuddie' is from Teutonic kudde , a flock But in the Shetland Isles , where it seems to have been considered an imitation of a troll's uncouth dance , a different and less dull explanation is forthcoming .sx Trolls or trows in traditional belief haunted those fairy knolls in northern Scotland which are known in some cases at least to have concealed the early underground dwellings or `earth-houses' popularly called `Picts' houses' in Scotland .sx When I was in Caithness , many years ago , I had an opportunity of visiting a `pech's hoose' on the shore of Loch Watten , and as far as I could penetrate the local belief a `pech' was just another name for a fairy .sx Now as regards the `Curcuddie' dance , the old Shetland folk had a tradition that somebody once saw `a scrae crowd of " henkies " ' trolls dancing round a fairy knowe .sx Amongst the dancers was a trow-wife ( fairy woman ) who failed to obtain a partner .sx She was heard to console herself thus :sx ( A cuttie is a short stumpy person cf .sx a cutty-pipe and a cuttystool and to henk is to limp or halt in the gait , hence the name `henkies' given to trows , who were said to limp as they danced .sx This is a pleasing , if not authentic , explanation of the origin of the dance .sx Edmondston's Glossary of the Shetland and Orkney Dialect gives `Heykokutty' a ludicrous dance performed by persons squatting on their hookers haunches to the tune of `Hey-quo'- Cutty' .sx The tune has apparently been lost .sx A verse printed by Buchan in his Ballads of the North ( see his note to `Cuttie's Wedding' ) perhaps contains an allusion to the dance and may have been , .sx rhyme sung to it .sx Here again Cuttie or Cuddie is a woman :sx The diversion seems to be a form of the frog-dance or kibbydance , and something very like it is depicted upon Greek vases .sx A somewhat similar game of little girls in Scotland is known as 'Cockie breeky' in which they draw the back edge of their frocks forward between their knees to form `breeks' , and dance or hop about singing apparently to the `Bee bo babbity' tune and so forth .sx Warrack's Scots Dialect Dictionary gives various forms of `Curcuddie' , e.g. `cuddie , curcuddoch , curcudyoch' , &c .sx , and also `Gutty-hunker-dance an old burlesque dance performed by mendicants' which seems to have been of the same nature .sx He glosses `curcuddock , curcudyoch' , &c .sx , as to sit close together in a friendly manner , or to whisper or talk together intimately .sx ( To 'curr' = to cower or crouch .sx ) But this does not seem to me to throw much light upon the name of the sport , in which the dancers are separate and independent , and do not crouch together at all .sx On the face of it , `cutty' seems to provide the simplest explanation a short or shortened performer crouching or 'cuffing' on his hunkers while he dances , whether the name `Curcuddie' itself be a shortened form of `Hey-co'-Cuttie' or the latter merely a folk-solution of a puzzle by an appropriate legend built out of familiar and acceptable material .sx These notes are all I have been able to collect in reference to the `Curcuddie' dance , but they serve to show that it was at one time more than a childish amusement ; and they may perhaps provide some data for further investigations by the folklorist .sx It would be interesting to discover whether the dance came into the Shetland Islands from Norway to which kingdom the Shetlands belonged till the end of the fourteenth century , having been peopled by Norwegians for at least five hundred years .sx The dancing trolls of Grieg's music suggest that in Norway also these little creatures were not supposed to be light on their feet .sx 3 .sx BABBITY BOWSTER .sx This dance-game , whose name is a corruption of `Bab i.e. bob or dance at ( or to ) the bolster' , is an interesting relic amongst children's singing-games of a primitive form of the Cushion Dance ( Joan Sanderson ) in Playford's Dancing Master collection .sx It used to be the last dance at a wedding festivity , before the newly married couple retired , in which the bride's pillow or `bolster' figured in what we should now consider a rather unseemly way .sx In its early form a young man of the company began the dance with the bolster as his partner , and after dancing about with it for a while laid it before one of the girls in the room , inviting her to kneel upon it and exchange a kiss .sx The girl next took the bolster , and having danced with it laid it at the feet of one of the men , and so on until all had had their turn and been brought into the dance .sx ( This accords pretty nearly with the directions given in the Dancing Master .sx ) In later times .sx a cushion or handkerchief was substituted for the pillow , the verses still being sung .sx ( Various versions of the dance will be found in Lady Gomme's Traditional Games , under `Cushion Dance' .sx ) According to one way of performing the dance , the girls stood in a row opposite the boys , one of whom chose a girl either by catching her round the neck with a handkerchief or spreading it on the ground at her feet .sx The kiss was generally not obtained without a struggle or pursuit , and the line `Who gave you the keys to keep ?sx ' in `Babbity Bowster' may have referred to the locking of the door , as was sometimes done to prevent the more bashful maidens from slipping out .sx In the outdoor singing-game , `Bee bo babbity' , the circle or row and song remain , also the choosing , the spreading of .sx the hand- kerchief , and the kiss , but by this time it is a game of little girls .sx When the pair kneel to kiss , the .sx chooser sometimes sings :sx But if boys are admitted to the charmed circle , this declaration may be reversed .sx