Probably the last thing anyone wants to do after a long night of leaping over bonfires on St. John’s Eve is cut a rug – but 650 years ago today, that’s precisely what happened. On June 24, 1374, against their collective will, hundreds found themselves swept up in an involuntary dance mania.

It was not for the first time, nor would it be the last, but it was one of the largest and most noteworthy outbreaks of terpsichorean madness, a malady that 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://www.onthisday.com/articles/the-fatal-dance-manias-of-medieval-europe?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR2-Yyg1Gyc-DqbJ0MeIhKIpk2H7TzQu-sfrVH9-9TFGs6w82LDW-ADlzoM_aem_Jt6r7qd7ALVA-g_kgq8gZQ

And here:

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

Gotta dance!