heathen, half-Christian festival. At the period of which we are
treating, however, the Germans were not the only people who gave
way to the ebullitions of fanaticism in keeping the festival of
St. John the Baptist. Similar customs were also to be found among
the nations of Southern Europe and of Asia, and it is more than
probable that the Greeks transferred to the festival of John the
Baptist, who is also held in high esteem among the Mahomedans, a
part of their Bacchanalian mysteries, an absurdity of a kind which
is but too frequently met with in human affairs. How far a
remembrance of the history of St. John's death may have had an
influence on this occasion, we would leave learned theologians to
decide. It is only of importance here to add that in Abyssinia, a
country entirely separated from Europe, where Christianity has
maintained itself in its primeval simplicity against Mahomedanism,
John is to this day worshipped, as protecting saint of those who
are attacked with the dancing malady. In these fragments of the
dominion of mysticism and superstition, historical connection is
not to be found.

When we observe, however, that the first dancers in Aix-la-
Chapelle appeared in July with St. John's name in their mouths,
the conjecture is probable that the wild revels of St. John's day,
A.D. 1374, gave rise to this mental plague, which thenceforth has
visited so many thousands with incurable aberration of mind, and
disgusting distortions of body.

This is rendered so much the more probable because some months
previously the districts in the neighbourhood of the Rhine and the
Main had met with great disasters. So early as February, both
these rivers had overflowed their banks to a great extent; the