The cushion-holder then goes to the girl he fancies most, and drops the cushion at her feet. She kneels down with him on the cushion, and he salutes her, and they then rise and dance round and round to the fiddler. The girls then go through the same thing, saying, “young men,” and then “a young man,” &c., until the whole company have gone through the same ceremony, which concludes with all dancing round three times, as at the commencement. The Norfolk and London versions are reduced to a simple “Kiss in the Ring” game, with the following verse:— Round the cushion we dance with glee, Singing songs so merrily; Round the cushion we dance with glee, Singing songs so merrily; Yet the punishment you must bear If you touch the cushion there. —Sporle, Norfolk (Miss Matthews). (_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.