The following podcast may not be for all listeners.
Listener discretion is advised. Some horrors cannot be explained
and some mysteries refuse to be solved.
Some historical events are so bizarre that they mock our
understanding of reality. In the summer of 1518, a woman
named Frau Troffe began to dance in the street in Strasbourg.
She didn't stop for days, No music played, her feet bled, and
she still danced. Within a week, Moore joined her
frenzied ballet, and by the month's end 400 people were
dancing themselves to death in the streets.
Doctors of the time were baffled, and modern scientists
remained perplexed. What force could possess
hundreds of people to dance until they died?
Welcome to unexplained realms. I'm your host, Anne.
In this episode, we are stepping into one of history's darkest
and most peculiar mysteries, the Dancing Plague of 1518.
In the shadows of eastern France lies Strasbourg, where ancient
cobblestones whisper secrets of madness and faith.
While tourists flock to photograph the European
Parliament and gawk at the Gothic Spires of Notre Dame,
they remain blissfully unaware of the city's darker pulse.
This rhythm echoes through centuries of blood soaked
history. The Rhine River flows past the
city's edges, its waters holding memories of countless souls who
succumbed to a psychological horror that once gripped these
streets. Forget the tales of the Devil's
Wind or even the Huns trop Christmas demon.
The true nightmare of Strasbourg emerged in 1518, when dozens of
citizens began to dance themselves to death in the
streets, their bodies twisting and convulsing in an unstoppable
frenzy until their feet bled and their hearts gave out.
Some say that on quiet nights, when the moon hangs low over the
Alisation rooftops, you can still hear the phantom echoes of
their frenzied footsteps. It all began in 1518 when a
woman named Frau Troffe was compelled to dance.
She stepped into the street and began dancing.
She seemed unstoppable, dancing until she collapsed from
exhaustion. Then, once she had rested, she
started dancing again, in a frenzied yet compulsive way.
Within days of her first manic steps, her solitary dance became
a grotesque Symphony, like a disease spreading through the
medieval streets. The compulsion infected others,
first dozens, then hundreds. The cobblestones of Strasbourg
became a stage for humanity's most disturbing ballet.
These weren't the graceful movements of celebration.
These dancers moved as if possessed, their limbs jerking
and twisting unnaturally, their faces contorted in agony even as
their feet refused to stop. Blood seeped through their
shoes, leaving Crimson trails across the stones.
Some danced until their ribs cracked, their bodies drenched
in sweat, mouths foaming, eyes rolling back in their heads.
In their infinite wisdom, the city's authorities decided that
the afflicted must dance it out. They constructed wooden stages
in Guild halls and hired musicians, as if adding melody
to madness would somehow cure it.
Till this point, they had all danced in silence.
City authorities thought specific locations would control
the crowd. Instead, they created a theater
of horrors where people danced themselves to death while others
watched, wondering if they would be next to contract this dancing
plague. Through it all, Fro Trofe kept
dancing, her initial steps having unleashed something
science still struggles to explain.
Was it mass hysteria, a fungal infection in the grain, or
something darker, an ancient curse awakened in the heart of
Elsais? In the end, up to 15 people died
each day, their bodies finally finding the peace their minds
wouldn't give them. All that's left of this bizarre
tale is what might have triggered these bizarre,
frenzied motions. Deep in the dark heart of this
mystery lies a possible microscopic answer ergot, a
toxic fungus that transforms grains into vessels of madness.
In medieval Strasburg's grain stores, these infected kernels
would have lurked like tiny time bombs, their purple black spores
nestled among the healthy seeds, waiting to be ground into the
daily bread that sustained the city.
When consumed, ergot's potential cocktail of alkaloids attacks
the central nervous system with savage efficiency, the same
compounds that would later inspire the creation of the drug
LSD that twists reality into nightmarish shapes.
Victims experience violent muscle spasms and convulsions
that, to horrified onlookers, might have appeared as frenzied
dancing. The toxin constricts blood
vessels, sending burning sensations through the limbs.
A feeling medieval sufferer is described as being tortured by
invisible flames. And Ergot's horror doesn't stop
at the physical symptoms. The fungus reaches into your
mind itself, spawning hallucinations and psychotic
episodes. Imagine the terror, your muscles
betraying you, your mind fracturing while vision stands
at the edges of your consciousness.
The dancers of Strasbourg might have been trapped in their
personal Hells, their bodies wracked by involuntary movements
while their poisoned minds spun through kaleidoscopic torment.
This theory gains darker weight when we consider Stromberg's
climate in 1518. This spring had been wet and
cold, perfect conditions for Urquhart to flourish in the
city's rye fields. The poorest citizens, surviving
primarily on rye bread, would have consumed the highest toxin
concentrations. It's no coincidence that the
most afflicted came from the lower classes, their daily bread
becoming their doom. Yet some researchers argue that
ergot alone cannot explain the perfect storm of horror that
descended on Strasbourg. While the fungus's effects are
devastating, they typically cause convulsions rather than
coordinated dance movements. The truth lies in a more
sinister combination, ergot induced convulsions interpreted
through the lens of mass hysteria, creating a feedback
loop of psychological and physiological terror that
transformed a simple fungal infection into one of history's
most macabre episodes. Among the more sinister theories
lurks a tale of divine vengeance.
St. Vitus, martyred in the blood
soaked final days of Rome's war on Christianity, supposedly
reached through the centuries to exact his revenge.
Them believed that Vitus supposedly cursed those who
denied his power, forcing them to dance until their feet bled
and their minds shattered. Their bodies, like puppets on
invisible strings, twisted and spun in a macabre ballet that
would only end when death finally granted them.
Whereas others will say it was related to socio political
stress during this period, poverty, disease, war and many
other hardships weighed heavily on those living there.
Could psychological strain have manifested into dancing
involuntarily to relieve stress? Ultimately, some suggest that
the movements could have been caused by a neurological
disorder, possibly even related to epilepsy or another condition
that wasn't understood at the time.
As the summer faded in Strasbourg that year, the
dancing finally ceased. The streets that had witnessed
hundreds of people dancing themselves to exhaustion and
death fell silent once again. But questions about this
extraordinary event have echoed through the centuries.
Was it mass hysteria triggered by the extreme hardships of
medieval life, Or a bizarre reaction to a fungal infection
in the local grain? Or was it something more
sinister, a supernatural force that possessed the bodies and
minds of these unfortunate souls?
Perhaps we just leave this to the unexplained realms.
What's particularly unsettling is that the dancing plague was
not isolated. Throughout medieval Europe,
similar episodes of mass dancing occurred, like a contagious
rhythm that affected the human spirit.
Kind of like the track behind me.
That's Matt Large with his track Alley Cats.
You can check him out on Spotify.
These events defied explanation then and continue to puzzle us
today. Perhaps the most chilling is the
thought that our minds remain just as susceptible to mass
phenomena now as they were five centuries ago.
Social media feeds, viral trends and mass movements show us that
human behavior can still spread like wildfire through a
population. The only difference?
Today, we dance through social media challenges instead of
village squares. Until next time, keep your eyes
open and watch your feet. You never know when the urge to
dance to your death you might strike.