About this episode Step back in time to 1518 Strasbourg, where a mysterious dancing plague gripped the city, causing hundreds to dance uncontrollably for days, even weeks, often to their death. This episode delves into the bizarre historical event, exploring the theories behind its origins – from mass hysteria to ergot poisoning – and examining the societal and medical responses of the era. Discover the chilling truth behind one of history's most inexplicable outbreaks and ponder what it reveals about the human psyche under extreme duress.
0:00 Shhh… close your eyes now, beta.0:02 The night jasmine is here.0:05 It is a story kind of smell.0:07 This one is from a long time ago, in a city called Strasbourg.0:12 One hot day in July, a woman named Frau Troffea walked out of her house and began to dance.0:20 Just… started dancing?0:22 For no reason?0:23 No music, no festival.0:25 She just danced in the street.0:28 All day and into the night.0:30 Well, I tell you what, Nani.0:33 It sounds about as sensible as trying to solve a whale problem with dynamite.0:40 But I reckon this one didn't end with blubber raining from the sky.0:45 No, kanna.0:46 It was stranger.0:48 By the end of one week, thirty-four other people were dancing with her.0:54 And then?0:55 Then it kept growing.0:56 Mm-hmm.0:57 The record says by August, there were about four hundred people dancing.1:03 Day in and day out.1:05 They weren't smiling.1:07 They just… couldn't stop.1:09 Their feet were bleeding, but they kept going.1:13 The city leaders, the important men, they became very worried.1:18 They talked and they talked.1:21 And they decided the dancers had "hot blood." Hot blood.1:26 And their prescription for that was, uh… more dancing.1:30 I swear on my tackle box, it's in the official ledgers.1:35 They cleared out the guildhalls, built a big wooden stage in the grain market, and even hired pipers and drummers to play music.1:46 They thought if the people danced it all out, the fever would break.1:52 But it only made more people join.1:55 It was like a song only they could hear.1:59 Some of them, beta, they danced until their hearts just… stopped.2:04 That's the honest truth.2:07 Folks were dying from strokes, exhaustion.2:10 Right there on the dance floor the city built for 'em.2:15 So the question is… why?2:17 What sickness makes a whole town dance itself to death?2:22 Well, for a long time, the old-timers figured it was something in the bread.2:28 A fungus that grows on damp rye grain, called ergot.2:33 It can cause spasms, hallucinations.2:36 It's a powerful poison.2:38 Accha.2:39 So maybe they were not dancing, but twitching?2:43 That's the idea.2:44 But, you know, the records are pretty specific.2:48 They describe it as dancing, not just jerking around.2:53 And it's hard to dance for weeks on end if you've been poisoned.2:58 You'd think you'd just… fall down.3:01 Hmm-mm.3:02 Maybe the poison was not in the bread.3:05 Maybe it was in the air.3:07 Not a real poison, but a fear.3:10 There was famine in that place, and sickness.3:14 People were afraid.3:16 Sometimes when a whole village is afraid, a strange fever can catch.3:22 You mean like… mass hysteria?3:24 A kind of psychological contagion.3:27 One person’s nightmare becomes everyone’s nightmare.3:32 Frau Troffea starts to dance because she has some private sorrow, some private fear.3:39 And her neighbors, they see her, and that same fear is in them, too.3:45 So they start to dance.3:47 And soon, the whole street is dancing away its troubles.3:52 It's a sad kind of magic, baba.3:54 So what finally stopped it?3:57 Did they find a cure for the "hot blood"?4:00 The city men tried another idea.4:03 They stopped the music.4:05 They banned all dancing.4:07 And then they gathered up the last few dancers, the ones still moving.4:13 And where'd they take 'em?4:16 They took them on a wagon to a shrine, up in the hills.4:20 A quiet place.4:22 They had them pray.4:23 And slowly, over a few weeks… the dancing just… stopped.4:28 The fever finally broke.4:30 Whoo, boy.4:31 So they danced 'em hard, then they prayed 'em hard.4:36 And one of 'em worked.4:37 Or maybe it just wore itself out, like a summer storm passing over the holler.4:44 Perhaps.4:45 We don't really know.4:47 It came like the wind and it went like the wind.4:51 And what did the little ones learn?4:54 Hmm?4:54 That sometimes the strangest fever is the one you can't see.5:00 Well.5:00 That is about the size of it.5:03 A story so peculiar you couldn't make it up if you tried.5:08 Now sleep, kanna.5:09 The story will wait for you.
