(Image credit: Benreis)
It's no wonder there are so many old German folk songs about linden trees. For more than a thousand years, people in German communities used a linden tree as a gathering place. They were even the site of public dances. Then someone got the idea to build a dance floor around a linden tree. If you train the lower side branches outward, you will have a support for an elevated dance floor. But then you built supports for it anyway, because they were quite popular. Those side branches grew upward to provide shade for the dancers. This is a Tanzlinde, or a dancing tree. The plural is Tanzlinden, because Germany still has a few of these charming arboral structures, some hundreds or even a thousand years old.
(Image credit: Benreis)
See and read about Tanzlinden in Sachsenbrunn, Effeltrich, Galenbecker, Gößweinstein, Limmersdorf, Peesten (shown above), and in Schenklengsfeld, where the linden tree is 1265 years old! -via Metafilter