Note 95 — 66 LORD INGRAM AND CHIEL WYET

Some of the Norse examples were derived from notes of Grundtvig, three others from Liebrecht. Grundtvig cites an ordinance of Frederic II of Denmark, dated 1586, to this effect: Whereas a custom has come in of having a dance during a wedding-repast, which dance those that sit behind the tables are asked to as well as others, and therefore are obliged to step on the tables, on which the victuals are still standing, and whereas this, indecorous of itself, might even prove dangerous to women-folk, and others, who should attempt to jump over the tables, now therefore dancing during meal-time is forbidden until dishes and tables shall have been cleared away: IV, 754. The table-jumping above is mostly done under great excitement, and at weddings, in order that the right parties may come together; but nimble young men in England seem to have taken this short way to their places habitually in old times. Liebrecht cites this curious passage from the Jests of Scogin, Hazlitt's Shakespeare Jest-Books, II, 105: "Scogin did mark the fashions of the court, and among all other things he did mark how men did leap over the table in the king's hall to sit down at dinner and supper, which is not used now." The first edition of Scogin's Jests is of 1565.