These were the forerunners of the "Mad Dancers" of the following year.
In a field outside of this city they came upon even a more dreadful sight.

Here forty or fifty frenzied people, most of them drunk, were engaged in burning a poor Jew, his wife and two children upon a great fire made of the staves of wine-casks, which they had plundered from some neighbouring cellars.

When Hugh and his companions came upon the scene the Jew had already burned and this crowd of devils were preparing to cast his wife and children into the flames, which they had been forced to see devour their husband and father.

Indeed, with yells of brutal laughter, they were thrusting the children into two great casks ere they rolled them into the heart of the fire, while the wretched mother stood by and shrieked.
"What do you, sirs ?" asked Hugh, riding up to them.
"We burn wizards and their spawn, Sir Knight," answered the ringleader.
"Know that these accursed Jews have poisoned the wells of our town--we have witnesses who saw them do it--and thus brought the plague upon us.

Moreover, she," and he pointed to the woman--"was seen talking not fourteen days ago to the devil in a yellow cap, who appears everywhere before the Death begins.