Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's future wife Fanny Appleton wrote, "The diabolical music and the dead rising from their tombs and the terrible darkness and the strange dance unite to form a stage effect almost unrivaled. The famous witches' (nuns) dance in the freezing moonlight in the ruined abbey, was as impressive as expected ... They drop in like flakes of snow and are certainly very charming witches with their jaunty Parisian figures and most refined pirouettes." 