Probably the last thing anyone wants to do after a long night of leaping over bonfires on St. John’s Eve is to cut a rug – but on this date 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 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
And here:
Gotta dance!
