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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 at 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.
In the UK the dancing takes the form of hopping and sometimes called the hop-egg. There were various forms of egg-dance, but Mark Knowles writes that it was brought to England from Germany by the Saxons as early as in the 5th century. The Saxon word hoppe means "to dance"
The 1867 book The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England writes:
The hornpipe was one of dances performed as an egg dance. Sometimes it was danced blindfolded. For example, the famous United States hornpipe dancer John Durang performed one of his hornpipes blindfolded on a scene covered with eggs.
Julian Mates in his book The American Stage before 1800 notes that blindfolded egg dances were popular musical act both in Europe and the United States during the 18th century.