This is an unusually large scene and one of the earliest in Teniers's career, dating from c. 1640. The theme comes ultimately from the work of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the ideas perhaps transmitted through his son, Jan Breughel I (see for example CWLF 9, 405513), who was also Teniers's father-in-law. In scale Teniers is closer to Pieter Bruegel than his son: the figures nearly as large as those in his Peasant Wedding and Peasant Dance (both Kunsthistorische Museum, Vienna), the painted area somewhat larger.

This is an everyday scene in a pub yard, not a kermis, as there is not a saint's banner hanging (as in CWLF 100, 405952) just a sign painted with a crescent moon and a beer pot (seen also in CWLF 93, 407274). A man has struck up on his bag-pipes and three couples are dancing; the rest of the clientele drink, make love, talk and vomit. The comedy of the scene lies in the general level of cheerful boorishness of the peasants and the clumsiness of their dancing. The focus of the humour lies in the episode in the foreground, as a chortling rustic invites a horrified young lady (a member of the prosperous merchant family) to join in the dancing.