Who loves to hear those curious stories that our grandparents tell us?
Well I do, and thanks to my passion for movies and mystery stories, since I was a kid, I loved to ask my grandparents about their stories from the past and my mom did not understand how a little girl could hear that kind of chronicles that sometimes became so spooky. But what can I say? that is my thing and for those lovers of mystery like me, it occurred to me to share this story that my grandfather told me many years ago but it is probably unknown to many of you.
The Dance Epidemic of 1568.
A normal day of July of 1518, Frau Troffea began to dance in the streets of Strasbourg, France. Onlookers started to laugh and clap at her energy but it soon became clear that this was not a simple case of high spirits because Frau continued dancing without rest for SIX DAYS.
The epidemic spread and in the course of a week 34 people had joined to dance with her. And that was not all, by the end of the month 400 people were dancing non-stop, day and night, in the streets of the town.
At the height of the dancing mania, several residents died every day of dehydration, strokes, heart attacks and some just by pure exhaustion. Historians comment that when they were dancing they looked like they were in a kind of trance or hypnotism, however, they felt miserable and asked for help because they desperately wanted to stop dancing and it is 100% sure that they were dancing, since their arms and legs moved as if they were purposefully dancing, not just shaking or convulsing, they were DANCING.
The town officials tried to stop this dance explosion by fighting fire with fire. They hired musicians, dancers and even built a huge stage in the hope that the madness would soon bourn out. Obviously, this did not work and only encouraged more people to join the dancers.
Finally, at the beginning of September 1518, 50 people had died dancing and the rest were forcibly taken to a healing sanctuary.
This event was not very documented since at that time the communications were practically nil. However, science over the years has tried to find the answer to the question:
Why did those people were dancing tirelessly?
Despite the attempts, this remains as a MYSTERY to this day. No one knows or can explain the cause but there are some theories that could be valid:
The most accepted proposal was elaborated by the historian John Waller, who explains that in that century that town had experienced calamities with horrible diseases and the were starving so this, combined with the spiritualist beliefs of the residents, could have induced a massive psychosis in the community affecting a large part of the residents.
Other people retribute the fault to the consumption of cornezuela, a type of fungus that grows in the corn and has psychotropic effects creating spasms and hallucinations but this is unlikely since its consumption obstructs the sanguineous flow which would make difficult the movement.
Finally, some researchers suggest that the dance was involved with some type of cult or religion.
However, none of these theories have been proved so this Mystery has been maintained over the years. Interesting friends, right? I hope you liked it and comment:
What do you think that could have happened in that strange town almost 500 years ago?
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