egg dance

An egg dance is a traditional Easter game in which eggs are laid on the ground or floor, and the goal is to dance among them, damaging as few as possible. The egg was a symbol of the rebirth of the earth in Pagan celebrations of spring, and was adopted by early Christians as a symbol of the rebirth of man at Easter. Another form of egg dancing was a springtime game depicted in the painting of Pieter Aertsen. The goal was to roll an egg out of a bowl while keeping within a circle drawn by chalk, and then flip the bowl to cover the egg. This had to be done with the feet without touching the other objects placed on the floor. An early reference to an egg dance was at the wedding of Margaret of Austria and Philibert of Savoy on Easter Monday of 1498. The event was described in an 1895 issue of The American Magazine as follows.¶

Then the great egg dance, the special dance of the season, began. A hundred eggs were scattered over a level space covered with sand, and a young couple, taking hands, began the dance. If they finished without breaking an egg they were betrothed, and not even an obdurate parent could oppose the marriage. After three couples had failed, midst the laughter and shouts of derision of the on-lookers, Philibert of Savoy, bending on his knee before Marguerite, begged her consent to try the dance with him.¶

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Egg dance”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.¶

egg dance is traditional Easter game to manipulate eggs with the feet without breaking them, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition.¹¶

The source record links this tradition to 4 external registers, which can be verified through the citation.¹¶