Introduction: Dancing as life : how dance was thought to bring life
I. Dancing the year : the ritual cycle of fertility
Swan maidens, mermaids, and tree spirits
Marking time
To bring the spring
Dancing up a storm
Crazy week
Rusalia week
Flowers with powers
Midsummer Rusalii
Friday, St. Friday
The twelve days of Christmas
II. Bride-dancing for fertility: the frog princess
The cosmic arrow
Bride testing
Trial by dance
The magic sleeve dance
Second skins
The hut on chicken legs
Koshchey the deathless
III. Dancing back through time
Medieval traces
Roman showbiz
Dancing with the Greeks
Back to the Bronze Age
Dancing at the dawn of agriculture
IV. Gotta dance!
Keeping together in time
Dancing the time warp
Epilogue: dancing divinity.