Strasbourg, 1518. In the midst of a blisteringly hot summer, a lone woman begins to dance in the city square. She dances for days without pause or rest, and as she is joined by hundreds of others, the authorities declare an emergency. Musicians will be brought in to play the Devil out of these women.

Just beyond the city’s limits, pregnant Lisbet lives with her mother-in-law and husband, tending the bees that are their livelihood. And then, as the dancing plague gathers momentum, Lisbet’s sister-in-law Nethe returns from seven years’ penance in the mountains for a crime no one will name.

The Dance Tree is based real events that occurred in Central Europe in 1518, when during the hottest summer Central Europe had ever known, a woman recorded as Fran Troffea began to dance in the streets of Strasbourg. No ordinary dance, it was unrelenting — more of a trance than a celebration. Fran danced for days and all attempts to make her rest were thwarted.  Only after being taken to the shrine of St Vitus, patron saint of dancers and musicians and being bathed in the spring there did she stop dancing but then it was too late. The dancing plague had spread and it lasted two months. At its height up to four hundred people danced. It was claimed up to fifteen people a day died and is the biggest outbreak of such a mania ever recorded. However, this was not an isolated incidence. Between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries, dancing plagues occurred regularly.  Sometimes they were contained. Sometimes they involved only children and sometimes mainly women. Often the dancers were society's most vulnerable, whether through class, age, race or gender.

Set in an era of superstition and hysteria The Dance Tree  shines a light on  a fascinating piece of history.

Donated to HYGGE On The Rows in Chester for the book friendly space in their café on Northgate Row.