Note 678 — Chapter IX · THE SWORD-DANCE
Reading edition
Bell, 181. The clown calls for ‘a room,’ after which one of the party introduces the rest. This also is a Christmas dance, but as the words ‘we’ve come a pace-egging’ occur, it must have been transferred from Easter. Bell says that a somewhat similar performance is given at Easter in Coniston, and Halliwell, Popular Rhymes and Nursery Tales, 244, describes a similar set of rhymes as used near York for pace-egging.