These dancing plagues had been knocking around Europe for years. The first recorded instance was right back in the 7th century. Occurrences popped up across Europe every so often until the mid 17th century, when they came to an abrupt stop. One plague of note in Germany in 1278 took place on a footbridge. Two hundred people danced on the bridge until it collapsed, many of the survivors went on to fully recover but many perished in the mayhem.

The biggest plague of dancing or “St Vitus’ Dance” sprang to life in 1374 in Aachen, Germany and managed to spread to Cologne, Flanders, Franconia, Hainaut, Metz, Strasbourg, Tongeren, Utrecht, and eventually Italy and Luxembourg. Dancers shouted, screamed and used vulgar language. Others reportedly danced naked and some even did a little bit of copulating on the side.

Some reports mentioned that the dancers would treat non-dancers with disdain or even violence if they refused to join their merry throng. Others still reported people dancing so violently that they broke their own ribs.

So what the frig is going on here? I mean really, what’s it all about? Some people point their finger at hypnotism or mass psychosis, neither of which really ring true.

Another theory is ergot poisoning. Ergot would grow on crops during hot, wet years and could cause LSD-like hallucinations, but it doesn’t really explain the dancing. Other theories suggest encephalitis, Sydenham’s chorea and epilepsy but they don’t explain all of the symptoms or the fact that it occurred en masse. Others still explain the plagues as some kind of odd, secretive cult based dancing that simply appeared odd to normal village folk. But that doesn’t really explain all the fatalities.

Could it simply have been one or two nutters who decided to dance and then everyone just joined in liked sheep in an attempt to fit in? I don’t know about you but none of those explanations really satisfies me at all?