Rather than be contrite, I think I'd go with "contra" as the origin, with images of lines of ladies and gentlemen in courtly 17th century dress performing intricate formal dances weaving in and out of the patterns and changing partners, flirting outrageously the while, and with French the courtly language over most of europe. Meanwhile, outside in the rain, the sturdy british peasants, in aping or lampooning their social betters, would strut about and put on exaggerated airs and graces to impress their rude fellows with their wit. They'd be more likely to corrupt the word "contra" into "country"....... well, they corrupted every thing else. Possibly, instead of carrying swords, which they couldn't have afforded anyway, they'd brandish sticks...... Oh no, I think I've just re-invented morris....

Thinking back about dancing with other weapons. many "primitive" native dances of course feature weapons, but I'd think these would be more likely to be intended to show the courage of the dancer - usually male - or celebrate the success of the battle or hunt etc. Hence hairy highlanders jumping about in wild abandon over the swords of the fallen enemy... or something.

And aren't there some old european dances which depict horses prancing and so on. And wasn't training your horse to prance about in certain ways actually training a weapon of war? So are these dances with (or at any rate about) weapons? Or is this getting too far off the track?