I draw a comparison in my mind with several outbreaks of dancing in the 1500's, involving hundreds or just a few people, nearly all in towns and cities close to the River Rhine.
A poem in the city archives explains what happened: “In their madness, people kept up their dancing until they fell unconscious and many died.” The city councils decided the dancers were suffering from holy wrath, they opted for a period of enforced penance and banned music and dancing in public. Finally, the dancers were taken to a shrine dedicated to St Vitus, located in a musty grotto in the hills above the nearby town of Saverne, where their bloodied feet were placed into red shoes and they were led around a wooden figurine of the saint. In the following weeks, say the chronicles, most ceased their wild movements. The epidemic had come to an end.
I draw a comparison in my mind with several outbreaks of dancing in the 1500's, involving hundreds or just a few people, nearly all in towns and cities close to the River Rhine. A poem in the city archives explains what happened: “In their madness, people kept up their dancing until they fell unconscious and many died.” The city councils decided the dancers were suffering from holy wrath, they opted for a period of enforced penance and banned music and dancing in public. Finally, the dancers were taken to a shrine dedicated to St Vitus, located in a musty grotto in the hills above the nearby town of Saverne, where their bloodied feet were placed into red shoes and they were led around a wooden figurine of the saint. In the following weeks, say the chronicles, most ceased their wild movements. The epidemic had come to an end.