No matter how much you may have hit the dance floor this past weekend, these French villagers have you beat. In 1518, a "Dancing Plague" swept through a small town in then-Alsace, leading multitudes of people to shake it until they either died or experienced horrifying injuries.
From the origins of this mass hysteria to the theories behind why it happened, here are 10 images telling the story of the Dancing Plague of 1518.
1
The Dancing Plague of 1518
Long before the Yeah Yeah Yeahs sang “dance ’til you’re dead” in “Heads Will Roll,” up to 400 French folks wound up doing just that during the Dancing Plague of 1518.
2
Patient Zero
Like with any plague, this dancing hysteria had a patient zero. In July 1518, a local woman named Frau Troffea took to the streets of Strasbourg, France (then Alsace) and proceeded to dance, dance and dance some more.
3
Dancing Queen
“Frau Troffea had started dancing on July 14th on the narrow cobbled street outside her half-timbered home,” explained London-based writer Ned Pennant-Rea. “As far as we can tell she had no musical accompaniment but simply 'began to dance.’”
4
Starting a Movement
Frau Troffea’s solo only lasted for so long, with more and more folks joining her in her impromptu performance. “Some of those who had witnessed her strange performance had begun to mimic her,” Pennant-Rea added, “and within days more than thirty choreomaniacs were in motion, some so monomaniacally that only death would have the power to intervene."
5
Gruesome Deaths
It didn’t take long for things to get gruesome. Alongside the dancers growing sweaty and bleeding into their shoes, several died of strokes and heart attacks.
6
Death Toll
It’s unclear how many people died during the ordeal, but some accounts claim up to 15 people died per day at the height of the deadly craze, per “A Time To Dance, A Time To Die.”
7
Mysterious Moves
Though the dancing ultimately died down that September, the cause of why, exactly this started remains a mystery, despite "physician notes, cathedral sermons, local and regional chronicles, and even notes issued by the Strasbourg city council" confirming it all went down, as Jennifer Viegas of Discovery News put it back in 2008.
8
Food Poisoning
Even so, some experts have devised a few theories as to why folks decided to get a little too jiggy with it. One point to food poisoning — specifically, that folks were consuming a psychedelic compound related to LSD that may have been growing on their grains.
9
Stress
Another theory stated that stress may have been behind the ordeal, arguing that factors like disease and lack of food may have sent locals into a form of psychosis.
10
Dance ’Til You Drop
Though the world may never know what, exactly caused this dancing plague, one thing is certain: It’s one heck of a creepy tale.
