In Kiran Millwood Hargrave’s The Dance Tree, these historic events frame the story of Lisbet, a young woman beset by woes: a series of stillbirths, a tyrannical mother-in-law, and now the return of Agnethe, her sister-in-law, who has spent six years in a nunnery on account of a mysterious sin.īeyond these troubled relationships, the women are stifled by male power, from violent husbands to a repressive elite – meaning that when their dance begins, it has the air of a freedom cry. The “dancing plague” remains unexplained, and invites any number of interpretations: call it a tale about religious fervour, or crowd madness. By some accounts, several women died of exhaustion every day. The dancing went on for weeks, to the ire of the authorities. One day in 1518, a woman started to dance in Strasbourg city square soon, hundreds more joined her under the summer sun.
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