The Bredhøj mound belongs to a group of circular mounds whose summit is perfectly flat; that’s the reason why the popular tradition has attributed to those spaces the name of “dance hills “. Mounds of this type, which measure between 30 and 60 meters in diameter and about 2 meters in height, are mainly found around Jutland area and date back to the Bronze Age.

In 1962 J. Bronstedt wrote the book “Nordische Vorzeit” (Neumunster, 1962), which describes the interesting researches carried out by archaeologists on Bronze Age burial mounds of northern prehistoric Europe (15th-5th centuries BC). In Denmark, these megalithic structures, entirely underground and known as “flat hills” (Flachhügel), were used for the celebration of funeral ceremonies connected to the cult of ancestors and fertility. The archaeological excavations carried out on these mounds have indeed brought to light perfectly preserved tombs, with the mummified body of the deceased still housed in his wooden sepulcher within propitiatory offerings, like the braids of carefully dressed styled female hair.
The summit of these mounds is perfectly flat, therefore particularly suitable for dance performances. For this reason, the popular tradition has sent them the name of dansehøj, dance hills (German: Tanzhügel). The diffusion area of these hills is very wide, to the point that some of them are known in Scania (Sweden) with the name of danshögar, Swedish term for dansehøj. But the link between megalithic culture and dance does not end here. In addition to the toponym “dance hills”, which gives us a distinct idea of their function, the folk tradition has transmitted us many legends that date back to the first period of Christianization and provide us an almost universal explanation of the birth of megalithic monuments, in which the functionof the dance is again highlighted. According to ancient popular legends, the mounds found in Bärenbühl (Black Forest, Germany), although smaller than Danish ones, were the seat of mysterious cults during which witches performed wild dances. Toponyms related to dance are common to the three types of megalithic monuments scattered throughout Europe, especially in France and Great Britain:
1 – cromlech (stone circles). Many legends describe the birth of stone circles as a consequence of the petrifaction of girls who, instead of participating in Christian religious ceremonies, had preferred to meet in hidden places to dance.

The legend of the “Bonnettes” (bad girls) of Sailly (France) tells that six girls went to a mound near the village to dance accompanied by a musician. After a long time God, fed up by the high jumps and the squeal of music, decided to punish the dancing girls by turning them into stones.
In other cases, like that of the “Demoiselles of Cojoux”, the young girls were petrified by God because they preferred to dance rather than go to Sunday mass. The “Demoiselles of Langon” suffered the same fate because they did not go to vespers. Also in the English folk tales the “Trippet Stones”, the “Merry Maidens”, like all nice companies that gave the name to many British cromlechs, are nothing more than young girls turned into stone for having danced during a Sabbah.

Dolmen of the “Pierre Folle” (Saint Priest-la-Feuille)