Dancing with the Devil

     Upon reading Lynda Roper's chapter on Sabbaths one of the many things that stood out to me was the mention of dancing. Although many view dancing as a time of joy and happiness and even Roper mentions that dances punctuated social life. She mentions how dances celebrated weddings, the birth of children, and other festivities throughout the village. Yet there is another tone given to dancing as Roper goes on. Women accused of witchcraft most often "flew" to Sabbaths and confessed to dancing with/for the devil. During this time dancing seemed to have gone from an act so joyous to something sinister. Roper mentions certain authors and their take on dancing at that time. The most common theme among these authors was that dancing was associated with fighting, adultery, murder. Even Jean Bodin condemned the dances that made "people wild and raging, and women to miscarry." Dancing was seen as an anti-fertility rite. Yet mentioned before it also celebrated the birth of children.
      It's interesting how these things in life, dancing, feasting, playing music, are simple acts yet during the witch hunts many of these activities were suddenly viewed as sinful.


   Just a fun side note: the whole time I was reading about this I was thinking "Footloose" this sounds exactly like the plot of the movie Footloose.

Silver Age: The Devil's Rejects

Even in the heretical divisions of the demon loving women across Europe, there still was a further divide in how demons viewed classes and beauty.  It was not enough to give your heart and soul to the Devil, but to be further judged in how much you as a woman brought to the table in looks and loot was a factor revealed under interrogation.  The humiliation and how far it went under the circumstances of feast and sexual debauchery was dependent on demon’s favor based on the aforementioned.  As Roper describes regarding women and their confessions of roles within the evil banquets, there was an obvious disparity in old and young hearts sought out by the demons.  While the young beauties are sought from all classes, the less affluent or older women suffered sideline rejection and even more humiliating acts that substantiated their cast within the feast, “…forced to act as human candle holders, lighting the dancing of the younger with a candle stuck in their anus” (Roper 122).  While this is a graphic representation of anal rape and humiliation, the cultural parody is derived from German custom in which young women coming of age place a lit pot outside their door as a signal of sexual maturation (Roper 123). 

Using the brief example above, how much of women’s confessions were maybe a conduit for grievances by way of fantasy/parody of cultural customs/age discrimination/societal cast.  

Roper, Lyndal. Witch Craze. Yale University Press, 2004. Print