The Pied Piper of Hamelin also known as The Rat-Catcher of Hamelin is a story about a stranger, dressed in colorful clothes who came into the city of Hamelin, the western part of today's Germany. The city was heavily infested with rats, they were literarily running over the tables in the middle of the day, and nothing helped against. Then a stranger offered to clear the mess for proper payment. By playing a magical flute he made all the rats to follow him out of town and the city was cleared. He kept his promise.
But the situation complicated when the stranger returned – the major for some reason decided not to pay and the piper angrily leaves the city only to get back a bit later, this time playing a different tune by his flute. All grown-ups couldn’t move and all the kids followed the stranger in an unknown direction. They were never seen again. Well, one, or three, depending on the version, stayed in town. The reason: inability to follow for some physical handicap like poor eyesight or lameness or deafness.
It’s important to note a few things:
- There is a city called Hamelin in Germany. The citizens are very well aware of the legend about the piper and disappearance of children. There are numerous signs related to the city in the story and it became a nice source of income from tourists.
- The oldest written record in the city (dating 1384) says: “One hundred years have passed since our kids left the town of Hamelin.” It's hard to know if they physically left or died of the plague. There was a pictorial representation of the events as well. But the stain glass window in the local church where the scene(s) were presented didn't survive past the 17th century.
- Several old records support the story about 130 children leaving the town going to an unknown place and never return. If this truly happened the most believable places are in the East. Brother Grimm, for instance, supported the theory about moving to Transilvania (their version of the legend was published as Der Rattenfänger in Deutsche Sagen (1816)).
The story about the piper of Hamelin, although later adapted into a song for kids (by Browning), poem for adults (by Goethe), presented as a legend (by Grimm brothers), like a cartoon (by Disney), etc., if pretty obviously based on real events. But which?
Illustration by Kate Greenaway
There are several theories, yet none of them is widely accepted.
- The piper could be a personification of a catastrophe like a plague. The rats in the story would support the theory, but the history of the records not. The rats were added to the story only several centuries after the first records were written (without any mentioning of rats). The plague epidemy also happened about half of the century after the kids departed the town of Hamelin.
- The children could be recruited for so-called Children crusades when poor parents’ children left homes to occupy unsettled territories in the East. Part of today’s Romania and part of today’s Poland could be their destination and names in phone directories support the theory. But hardly anything else.
- There were times when people were so poor they simply sold their kids because they lost belief they can support them. If a rich, well-dressed man with the right promises and some money came, it would be possible they accepted his offer. If something like this happened, it would be understandable they tried to forget it (nothing is written in those time) but couldn’t (the story started to circulate later when everybody involved was already dead).
There a few more speculations about the story about the Piper of Hamelin, but we’ll never know for sure.
