Gotta dance!

Probably the last thing anyone wants to do after a long night of leaping over bonfires for St. John’s Eve is to cut a rug – but in 1374, that’s precisely what happened. Against their collective will, hundreds found themselves swept up in an involuntary dance mania.

It was not the first time, nor was it the last, but it seems largely to have been a phenomenon of the Middle Ages. Participants danced until they collapsed from exhaustion. Some dropped down dead. The cause of the frenzy has never been adequately explained.

Read more about St. John’s Dance (often attributed to St. Vitus) here:

https://blog.europeana.eu/2015/06/st-johns-dance-why-cant-they-stop-dancing/

And here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_mania