Hare

It was once very popular as a jumping game played by rural and urban children. To this day it is popular in Kurpie, Mazovia, Warmia, and other regions of the country. It used to be danced only by men, as a relic of old dances with weapons and vegetative magic (connected with folk images of agility and fertility of the hare), with time it could also be performed as a skill dance by young people of both sexes. Łukasz Gołębiowski describes this dance as a girls’ game: “Each of the young ladies likes to dance, and if she can turn out beautifully in it […] she is already testing her strength, and when essential dancing is impossible, at least she can jump out of the hare. To do this, a circle is drawn on the floor and a cross is inscribed in it […] One needs to move faster and faster and with a different foot, but always in tact, without making a mistake, to hit each part of the fairly small circle” (Games and Plays, 1831, p. 28). Jumping over sticks arranged crosswise on the ground or lines drawn on the ground is accompanied by a song:

A hare is sitting on a hill,

And I would jump over sticks laid crosswise on the ground or lines drawn, accompanied by the song: On a little hill a hare is sitting, wagging its tail.

And I would hop like this,

so that I would have such legs..,

Like this hare.

And you the hare, and I the hare,

♪ And I’d be shuffling my feet like this ♪

And I’d be so dressed up..,

♪ If I had legs like that ♪

like the hare.

This dance consists of jumping between two crossed sticks placed on the ground (or lines drawn on the floor, sometimes in a parallel arrangement or at X), so as not to touch the sticks in an increasingly faster pace of jumping. The tempo of the first stanza is slow. The dancer stands in front of crossed sticks placed on the ground and to the rhythm of the song, crossing one leg over the other alternately, touches the upper fields with them: with the right leg to the upper left corner, with the left leg to the upper right corner. In the second part of the dance, at the second stanza, the tempo increases and the dancer makes the same touches on the fields while jumping. During the dance it is not allowed to hit the sticks placed on the ground or step on the line drawn. In the region of Warmia and Mazury the dancers would clap their hands once at the front and once at the back while changing legs. The dance ended with a jump on both feet at the last words of the song. It can be performed simultaneously by several children, as a kind of show-off, who better (skillfully) dances the hare.