Still less, of course, did dance and song cease to be important features of the secular side of the festivals. We have already seen how _cantilenae_ on the great deeds of heroes had their vogue in the mouths of the _chori_ of young men and maidens, as well as in those of the minstrels[539]. The _Carmina Burana_ describe the dances of girls upon the meadows as amongst the pleasures of spring[540]. William Fitzstephen tells us that such dances were to be seen in London in the twelfth century[541], and we have found the University of Oxford solemnly forbidding them in the thirteenth. The _romans_ and _pastourelles_ frequently mention _chansons_ or _rondets de carole_, which appear to have been the _chansons_ used to accompany the choric dances, and to have generally consisted of a series of couplets sung by the leader, and a refrain with which the rest of the band answered him. Occasionally the refrains are quoted[542]. The minstrels borrowed this type of folk _chanson_, and the conjoint dance and song themselves found their way from the village green to the courtly hall. In the twelfth century ladies _carolent_, and more rarely even men condescend to take a part[543]. Still later _carole_, like _tripudium_, seems to become a term for popular rejoicing in general, not necessarily expressed in rhythmical shape[544]. The customs of the village festival gave rise by natural development to two types of dance[545]. There was the processional dance of the band of worshippers in progress round their boundaries and from field to field, from house to house, from well to well of the village. It is this that survives in the dance of the Echternach pilgrims, or in the ‘faddy-dance’ in and out the cottage doors at Helston wake. And it is probably this that is at the bottom of the interesting game of ‘Thread the Needle.’ This is something like ‘Oranges and Lemons,’ the first part of which, indeed, seems to have been adapted from it. There is, however, no sacrifice or ‘tug-of-war,’ although there is sometimes a ‘king,’ or a ‘king’ and his ‘lady’ or ‘bride’ in the accompanying rhymes, and in one instance a ‘pancake.’ The players stand in two long lines. Those at the end of each line form an arch with uplifted arms, and the rest run in pairs beneath it. Then another pair form an arch, and the process is repeated. In this way long strings of lads and lasses stream up and down the streets or round and about a meadow or green. In many parts of England this game is played annually on Shrove Tuesday or Easter Monday, and the peasants who play it at Châtre in central France say that it is done ‘to make the hemp grow.’ Its origin in connexion with the agricultural festivals can therefore hardly be doubtful[546]. It is probable that in the beginning the players danced rather than ran under the ‘arch’; and it is obvious that the ‘figure’ of the game is practically identical with one familiar in _Sir Roger de