My Famous Cameo: The Springle-ring

"There were, as has been said, many young hobbits present...Indeed, in one corner some of the young Tooks and Brandybucks, supposing Uncle Bilbo to have finished [his speech] (since he had plainly said all that was necessary), now got up an impromptu orchestra, and began a merry dance-tune. Master Everard Took and Miss Melilot Brandybuck got on a table and with bells in their hands began to dance the Springle-ring: a pretty dance, but rather vigorous." - FOTR

"Tolkien wrote that springle-ring was 'an invention' and defined it as 'a vigorous ring-dance in which dancers often leapt up' (Guide to the Names in LR'). Certainly the O(xford) E(nglish) D(ictionary) has no entry for springle-ring, and Tolkien perhaps intended springle simply to suggest the frequent springing or leaping. Yet the OED does mention an 18th- and 19th-century word springle, meaning 'a young man, youth, or stripling' (OED: SPRINGALD), which is used, for example, in Charles Kingsley's Hereward the Wake. This sense of springle would be quite appropriate even if Tolkien had used it only to imply that the dancers were normally young; but it could also be a learned joke, based on the fact that springle or springald has a meaning very similar to that of halfling." - The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary, Gilliver, Marshall, and Weiner