Vitus (St.)
.St. Vitus’s dance, once widely prevalent in Germany and the Low Countries, was a “dancing mania.” So called from the supposed power of St. Vitus over nervous and hysterical affections.
“At Strasbourg hundreds of folk began
To dance and leap, both maid and man;
In open market, lane, or street,
They skipped along, nor cared to eat.
Until their plague had ceased to fright us.
Jan of Konigshaven (an old Cerman chrondcler).
St. Vitus’s Dance. A description of the jumping procession on Whit-Tuesday to a chapel in Ulm dedicated to St. Vitus, is given in Notes and Queries, September, 1856. (See Tarantism.)
