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n Speaking of swarms of Germanic rats, the talenhas to that of the Pied Piper of Hamelin (the Anglicised form of Hameln,nas it seems the English are unable to pronounce the letter combination of ‘ln’n– I wonder how we manage words like ‘kiln’ if that’s the case). I firstncame to the story through Robert Browning’s poem of the same name, which usednto be a standard recitation piece in junior schools (and if it still isn’t, itnjolly well ought to be).
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nIt’s a rattlingly (no pun intended) good bit ofnversifying, with splendid metrical flourishes and cleverly unforced rhymes andnjust the sort of deliciously macabre details that send shivers down the spinesnof young readers. Legions of rats have invaded Hamelin in Lower Saxony and thentownsfolk are at their wits’ ends when a strange piper in varicoloured motleynarrives in the town, offering to lead the infestation away for one thousandnguilders.
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nOverjoyed, the mayor and corporation up the offer to fifty thousandnguilders to rid them of the vermin and so the piper tootles on his flute andnpipes the pests out of Hamelin and into the river Weser, where all but onensurvivor drown.
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nThe piper goes back to claim his fee but the mayor reneges onnthe deal and offers a mere fifty guilders whereupon the piper steps out into thenstreet and pipes once more.
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nThe boys and girls of the town flock behind him andnare charmed away, turning away from the river’s edge at the last minute butnfollowing the enchanted piper to the Koppelberg hill instead, where a magicalnportal opens in the hillside long enough for the piper and the children to benswallowed up. All but one crippled lad disappear inside, he too slow to reachnthe doorway in time and, it is said, a strange band of people in far-offnTransylvania are descended from these stolen children.
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nIt’s a moral tale – keepnyour promises or you will have to ‘pay the piper’ – and is said to be based onna real event that happened in 1284, when one hundred and thirty childrennmysteriously disappeared from Hamelin (Browning places his version in 1376).nThe rats did not appear in the story until sometime in the 1550s and in somenversions the children are returned when the piper is paid many times thenpromised bounty.
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nThe first mention of the Pied Piper appears in 1384, when thentown chronicle of Hamelin records that it was one century since the childrenndisappeared. The story has had additions and twists added over the years;nGoethe wrote a version, as did the Brothers Grimm, with Browning’s poemnpublished first in 1842. Walt Disney made a Silly Symphony cartoon inn1933, wherein the children are led into a magical kingdom inside the Koppelbergnmountain, with the crippled boy healed at the last minute and managing to slipninto a Teutonic version of the Big Rock Candy Mountain.
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nNo one knows whatnreally happened at Hamelin but there have been assorted theories put forward tonexplain the genesis of the myth. Some link the story to plague legends, withnthe Pied Piper taking the role of Death in a bizarre danse macabre,nmetaphorically leading the dead children into the Pit.
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nOthers feel that thentrue origins of the tale stem from resurgent attempt at a Children’s Crusade,ncopying the Crusades of 1212 when, it was said, two columns of children set outnfor the Holy Land, one from France and one from Germany, intent on peaceablynconverting the Muslim occupiers of Jerusalem to Christianity. The reality ofnwhat really happened is lost in myth and legend but it looks likely that therenwas a movement of people from France and Germany in the direction of the Levantnbut it also seems likely that the majority of them didn’t leave European soil,nand the ones that did were most likely sold into slavery in northern Africa.
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nYet another possibility is that something terrible happened in Hamelin and theninhabitants had to devise an elaborate alibi for the loss of the children (onenversion puts forward the idea that rye bread became infected with ergot fungus,nwhich produces a powerful hallucinogen similar to LSD, and the tripped-outncitizens murdered their offspring).
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nTurning to another possibility, it could benthat the children weren’t really children in the primary sense but weren‘children’ of Saxony who left their heimat and struck out for pasturesnnew, founding new communities throughout Europe. There may be something to allnthis, as there are population pockets in places like Poland that have surnamesnthat are distinctly unSlavic but curiously Germanic instead. There werenmovements of German settlers into other parts of the continent at about thenthirteenth century and there were recruiters who ‘charmed’ prospectivenemigrants into joining the exodus, and it is possible that at least one ofnthese recruiters – lokators –nused a pipe or a flute to attract his clients.
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nIf you haven’t read Browning’snpoem, it’s easy enough to find online – have a read, you’ll enjoy it.
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