The Devil at the Dance
It's a centuries-old folktale—a story about one evening when the devil came to town to dance with an unwitting partner and steal her soul. Found in nearly every province across Canada, the story of "The Devil at the Dance" is perhaps best known as a quaint French Canadian legend meant to caution the young about the dangers of drinking and dancing. But is it just a Catholic morality tale, or is there more to the story?
“Waltzing. — The Abbé Hulot, one of the modern French fanatics, has just published a furious declamatory attack upon dancing, the favourite amusement of his countrymen. He fulminates the following tirade against waltzing: ’How can any one dance, and particularly waltz, with a person of a different sex, without indulging in the most culpable liberties? In this dance, impurity, divested of that shame which on other occasions compels it to seek obscurity, exhibits itself before a crowd of spectators, who are so corrupted as to applaud its excesses. May it not be said of the waltz, which in the opinion of men of the least captious judgement, is of a nature to disconnect the most rigid virtue; that it upholds and fortifies that corruption from which it sprung; that it kills all sense of modesty in the hearts of those who indulge in it, even the very first time; and, that it is a violent poison, which carries instantaneous death to the souls of those who join it, and renders them deserving of hell’s flames?’”
– “Waltzing.” Montreal Gazette, 26 October 1826, Page 2.
Sources
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“Waltzing.” Montreal Gazette, 26 October 1826, Page 2.
“Your Grandparents’ Dirty Dancing.” Words at Play, Mierriam-Webster.com. Accessed November 2021. https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/your-grandparents-dirty-dancing-banned-dances-from-history
