who was saying mass in the church. He ordered them to
desist; but they danced on in reckless mirth. The holy father then
invoked God and St. Magnus to keep them dancing for a whole year; and
not in vain. For twelve months they danced in spite of themselves.
Neither dew nor rain fell upon them; and their shoes and their clothes
were not worn away, although by their dancing they buried themselves
waist-high. Yet, fatigued and famished beyond human endurance, they
danced on, unable to stop an instant for rest or food. The priest's own
daughter was among the dancers; and, unable to undo what the Saint had
done, he sent his son to drag her out of the dance. But when her brother
pulls her by the arm it comes off in his hand, and he in horror takes it
to his father. No blood flows from the wound. The priest buries the arm,
and the next morning he finds it upon the top of the grave. He repeats
the burial, and with the same result. He makes a third attempt, and the
grave casts out the limb with violence before his eyes. Meanwhile the
girl and her companions continue dancing, and the Emperor, having heard
of this strange occurrence, travels from Rome to see so sad a sight. He
orders carpenters to inclose the dancers in a building, but in vain; for
that which is built in the day falls down in the night. The dancers have
neither rest nor mitigation of their curse until the expiration of the
year, when they all rush into the church and fall before the altar in
a swoon, from which they are not recovered for three days. Then they
immediately flee each other's faces, and wander solitary through the
world, still dancing at times in spite of themselves. In the olden time
this was believed to be the origin of St. Vitus's dance; but we can now
see that the dance is the origin of the story.

The Dance of Death was performed by a large company dressed in the
costumes of various classes of society, which were then very marked in
their difference. One by one the dancers suddenly and silently slipped
off, thus typifying the departure of all mankind at Death's summons.
That this Dance was performed, not only with the consent, but by the
procurement of the clergy, is made certain by the discovery, in the
archives of the Cathedral of Besancon, of the account of the payment of
four measures of wine by the seneschal to those persons who performed
the Dance Macabre on the 10th of July, 1453.

The moral lesson conveyed by this strange pastime or cere