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The Black Death - The Dancing Mania by J. F. C. (Justus Friedrich Carl) Hecker
page 88 of 152 (57%)
saying, "Vitus, thy prayer is accepted." Thus St. Vitus became
the patron saint of those afflicted with the Dancing Plague, as
St. Martin of Tours was at one time the succourer of persons in
small-pox, St. Antonius of those suffering under the "hellish
fire," and as St. Margaret was the Juno Lucina of puerperal women.


SECT. 3--CAUSES


The connection which John the Baptist had with the Dancing Mania
of the fourteenth century was of a totally different character.
He was originally far from being a protecting saint to those who
were attacked, or one who would be likely to give them relief from
a malady considered as the work of the devil. On the contrary,
the manner in which he was worshipped afforded an important and
very evident cause for its development. From the remotest period,
perhaps even so far back as the fourth century, St. John's day was
solemnised with all sorts of strange and rude customs, of which
the originally mystical meaning was variously disfigured among
different nations by superadded relics of heathenism. Thus the
Germans transferred to the festival of St. John's day an ancient
heathen usage, the kindling of the "Nodfyr," which was forbidden
them by St. Boniface, and the belief subsists even to the present
day that people and animals that have leaped through these flames,
or their smoke, are protected for a whole year from fevers and
other diseases, as if by a kind of baptism by fire. Bacchanalian
dances, which have originated in similar causes among all the rude
nations of the earth, and the wild extravagancies of a heated
imagination, were the constant accompaniments of this half-
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