The Pied Piper of Hamelin
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The oldest picture of Pied Piper (watercolor) copied from the glass window of Marktkirche in Hameln by Freiherr Augustin von Moersperg. |
The Pied Piper of Hamelin is a folk tale, documented by the
Brothers Grimm, which tells of an unusual disaster that occurred in the town of
Hamelin,
Germany,
June 26,
1284.
In 1284, the town of Hamelin was suffering from a dreaded rat infestation. One day, a man claiming to be a
rat-catcher approached the villagers with a solution. They promised him a
schilling for the head of each
rat. The man accepted and thus took a
pipe and lured the rats with a song into the
Weser river, where all 999,999 drowned. Despite his success, the people reneged on their promise and refused to pay the rat-catcher, reasoning that he had failed to produce the heads. He left the town, but returned several weeks later. While the inhabitants were in the church, he played his pipe again, this time attracting the children of Hamelin. One hundred and thirty boys and girls followed him out of the town, where they were lured into a cave and sealed inside. Depending on the version, at most two children remained behind. Other versions claim that the Piper returned the children after the villagers paid several times the original amount of gold.
The earliest mention of the story seems to have been on a
glass window placed in the church of Hamelin
c. 1300. It was described in several accounts between the
14th century and the
17th century but it seems to have been destroyed. Based on the surviving descriptions, a modern reconstruction of the window has been created by
Hans Dobbertin. It features the colorful figure of the Pied Piper and several figures of children dressed in white.
This window is generally considered to have been created in memory of a tragic historical event for the city. But although there has been a lot of research, no clear explanation can be given of what historical event is behind the reports, see
an external link with a list of theories. However, the rats were first added to the story in the late
16th century; they are absent from all previous accounts. Some traumatic event must have given rise to the legend; Hamelin town records are dated from this time.
Theories that have gained some support can be grouped into the following four categories:
*The children fell victim to an accident, either drowning in the river Weser or being buried in a
landslide.
*The children contracted some disease during an
epidemic and were led out of town to die in order to protect the rest of the city's population from contracting it. An early form of
Black Death has been suggested. Others attribute the
dancing of the children to be an early reference to
Huntington's disease, an inherited disorder. Another possibility would be the outbreaks of
chorea, or communal dancing mania, which are recorded in a number of
European towns during the period of general distress which followed the Black Death. The 'Verstegan/Browning' date,
1376, would be consistent with this. These theories perceive the Piper as a symbolic figure of
Death. Death is often portrayed dressed in motley, or "pied." Analogous themes which are associated with this theory include the
Dance of Death,
Totentanz or
Danse Macabre, a common medieval type. Various ecstatic outbreaks were associated with the Plague, such as the
Flagellants, who wandered from place to place while scourging themselves in penance for sins that presumably brought the plague upon Europe. The rat is the preferred host for the plague vector, the rat flea. When the rats die first, the fleas seek a secondary host. Children would be more vulnerable to the disease.
*The children left the city to be part of a
pilgrimage, a
military campaign, or even a new
Children's crusade but never returned to their parents. These theories see the unnamed Piper as their leader or a recruiting agent.
*The children willingly abandoned their parents and Hamelin in order to become the founders of their own villages during the
colonization of Eastern Europe. Several European villages and cities founded around this time have been suggested as the result of their efforts as settlers. This claim is supported by corresponding placenames in both the region around Hamelin and the eastern colonies where names such as
Querhameln ("mill village Hamelin") exist. Again the Piper is seen as their leader.
The tradition that the children emigrated in 1284 is so old and well-reported that explanations associated with the Black Death seem unlikely. Modern scholars regard the emigration theory to be the most probable , i.e. that the Pied Piper of Hamelin was a recruiter for the colonization of Eastern Europe which took part in the
13th century and that he led away a big part of the young generation of Hamelin to a region in Eastern Germany.
Decan Lude of Hamelin was reported
ca. 1384 to have in his possession a
chorus book containing a
Latin verse giving an eyewitness account of the event. The verse was reportedly written by his grandmother. This chorus book is believed to have been lost since the late 17
th century.
A
German account of the event seems to have survived in a
1602/
1603 inscription found in Hamelin:
Anno 1284 am dage Johannis et Pauli
war der 26. junii
Dorch einen piper mit allerlei farve bekledet
gewesen CXXX kinder verledet binnen Hamelen gebo[re]n
to calvarie bi den koppen verloren
It has been roughly translated into English as:
In the year of 1284, on the day of Saints John and Paul
was the 26th of June
By a piper, dressed in all kinds of colors,
130 children born in Hamelin were seduced
and lost at the place of execution near the koppen.
Koppen (
Old German meaning "hills") seems to be a reference to one of several hills surrounding the city. Which of them was intended by the verse's author remains uncertain.
The oldest remaining written source is from
ca. 1440.
Reportedly, there is a long-established law forbidding singing and music in one particular street of Hamelin, out of respect for the victims: the Bungelosenstrasse adjacent to the
Pied Piper's House.
In
1556 "De miraculis sui temporis" (Latin: Concerning the Wonders of his Times) by
Jobus Fincelius mentions the legend. The author identifies the Piper with the
Devil.
The earliest
English account is that of
Richard Rowland Verstegan (
1548-c.
1636), an antiquary and religious controversialist of partly
Dutch descent, in his 'Restitution of Decayed Intelligence' (
Antwerp,
1605); unfortunately he does not give his source. He includes the reference to the rats and the idea that the lost children turned up in
Transylvania. The phrase 'Pied Piper' seems to have been coined by Verstegan. Curiously enough his date is entirely different from that given above:
July 22,
1376. Verstegan's account was copied in
Nathaniel Wanley's 'Wonders of the Visible World' (
1687), which was the immediate source of
Robert Browning's well-known poem (below).
In
1803,
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote a poem based on the legend. He incorporated references to the story in his version of
Faust. The first part of the Drama was first published in
1808 and the second in
1832.
Jakob Grimm and
Wilhelm Grimm, siblings known as the
Brothers Grimm, drawing from eleven sources included the tale in their collection "Deutsche Sagen" (German Legends), first published in
1816. According to their account two children were left behind as one was blind and the other lame, so neither could follow the others. The rest became the founders of Siebenbürgen (Transylvania).
Based probably on the Grimm Brother's version of the tale, Robert Browning wrote a poem of that name which was published in
1849. (It places the events on July 22, 1376.) Browning's verse retelling is notable for its humor, wordplay, and jingling rhymes.
"When, lo, as they reached the mountain's side,A wondrous portal opened wide,As if a cavern was suddenly hollowed;And the Piper advanced and the children followed,And when all were in to the very last,The door in the mountain-side shut fast."
This place is up the Coppenbrugge mountain, and is infamously known as an ancient site of
pagan worship.
The Pied Piper story is heavily referenced by the
Russian poet
Marina Tsvetaeva in her poem
The Ratcatcher, first published in
1925.
The Pied Piper is the title of a well-known novel (later filmed) by
Nevil Shute.
In
2005, children's author
Jane Yolen wrote a young adult novel about the tale:
Pay the Piper, a
rock and roll fairy tale.
Also in 2005, Adam McCune and Keith McCune, a father-son writing team, published
The Rats of Hamelin, in which an eighteen-year-old Pied Piper faces a hidden enemy with powers like his own.
The tale has inspired a common English phrase,
"pay the piper", which means to face the inevitable consequences of one's actions. The phrase sometimes refers to a financial transaction but often does not. A phrase with similar meaning and slightly more negative connotation is
"face the music".
* In
1966, the song "The Pied Piper" became a smash hit and signature song of British musician
Crispian St. Peters. The song reached #6 in the
U.S. (
Billboard Hot 100), and the top 10 in the
UK.
* The
1999 release by
Demons And Wizards features a song entitled "The Whistler", which portrays the Pied Piper as a lurer for a clan of rats, who will feast upon the children of the townspeople who did not repay their debt.
* The
ABBA track "The Piper" is also inspired by the tale. Includes the lyric: "We're following a strange melody, we're all summoned by a tune, we're following the piper and we dance beneath the moon."
* In the title track of
Radiohead's album
Kid A (
2000), the song references the tale in the ending lyrics, "The rats and children follow me out of town, rats and children follow me out of your homes. Poor kids."
* The
1992 Megadeth song "Symphony of Destruction" from their
Countdown To Extinction album references the Pied Piper.
* The
Led Zeppelin song "
Stairway to Heaven" references the Pied Piper.
*
Jethro Tull included the song "Pied Piper" on their album
Too Old to Rock 'n' Roll: Too Young to Die! (1976).
*
In Extremo have recently put Goethe's verse to music in their song,
"Der Rattenfänger" on their album,
Sünder ohne Zügel.
*
Chulo Hamlin, an
Argentine band, dedicated its name partly to this classic pipe player, as well as many songs.
*
R. Kelly, an
R&B singer, is known among his fans as the "Pied Piper of R&B".
*
Eminem includes the lyrics, "Best believe somebody's payin' the pied piper," in the song "Lose Yourself" from the
8 Mile Soundtrack. (2002)
* NOFX refer to paying the piper in the song Bottles to the Ground.
*A song by
Genesis, "Supper's Ready," references the Pied Piper in its sixth section with the line, "the pied piper takes the children underground."
*In 2006, Houston band
Erase the Virus released the song "Pied Piper".
*
Edguy's "The Piper Never Dies," on the
2003 album
Hellfire Club, refers to the eponymous piper as the "Pied Piper" towards the end.
* The story has been depicted many times on film:
1903,
1911,
1913,
1918,
1924,
1926,
1933,
1957,
1972,
1982 and
1985.
** The 1957 film "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" was a musical version, using the music of
Edvard Grieg, and starring
Van Johnson in the title role
** The 1972 version "The Pied Piper" contained music by
Donovan, who also played the title role.
** The 1985
Krysar was a
stop-motion film animated by the
Trnka Studio in
Czechoslovakia and directed by
Jiri Barta that used a modified darker version of the story. It was told entirely without any discernable words.
*
Nevil Shute's novel
Pied Piper was set in
Nazi-occupied
France and was only very loosely connected with the original story. It was filmed as
The Pied Piper in
1942 and
1990.
*
Atom Egoyan's
1997 film
The Sweet Hereafter (based on the novel by
Russell Banks) makes extensive metaphorical use of the Pied Piper legend. Browning's poem forms the narration for the film, delivered by a young girl who was crippled in a school bus accident that killed all of the other children in her small Canadian town. The script adds several lines that are not in Browning's poem.
*
Katy Towell's
2006 animated short
El Despertar is based on the "Pied Piper" with a Spanish, darker influence, replacing the rats with zombies.
* The story provides the basis for the central plot and several characters in the
1998 debut
novel King Rat by
China Miéville.
* In the play
The Pillowman, the main character had written a story explaining the origin of the lame child who could not follow the Piper. He claimed that it was the Piper himself who chopped off the child's toes, because the child had showed him kindness, and the Piper did not want to punish the child.
*
Breath by
Donna Jo Napoli tells the tale from the point of view of the lame child left behind when the Piper takes the children into the mountain.
*
Terry Pratchett's
The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents is a humorous take on the Pied Piper, one which manages to
lampoon the fairy tale conventions of the original tale while providing thoughtful commentary on the motives that drive people to act as they do in the real world.
*
After Hamelin by
Bill Richardson is a unique story that picks up the story where Browning's poem left off. It is written in the voice of the deaf child in the poem, who Richardson names Penelope.
*
Just a Couple of Days, by
Tony Vigorito, is a satirical story of
biological warfare with a so-called "Pied Piper Virus." The book presents an interesting history of the Pied Piper legend, linking it to the medieval "Dancing Manias" (see also:
St. John's Dance).
*
Michael Moorcock produces his own theory of the Hamelin legend in his book,
The Dreamthief's Daughter, where the cavern that the children escape into is actually a secret entrance to the
Mittelmarch.
* The Ratastrophe Catastrophe by
David Lee Stone is a parody based on the Pied Piper about a boy called Diek who takes away the children of a town because a voice in his head told him to.
In
linguistics pied-piping is the common, informal name for the ability of question words and relative pronouns to drag other words along with them when brought to the front, as part of the phenomenon called
Wh-movement. For example, in "For whom are the pictures?", the word "for" is
pied-piped by "whom" away from its declarative position ("The pictures are for me"), and in "The mayor, pictures of whom adorn his office walls" both word "pictures of" are pied-piped to in front of the
relative pronoun, which normally starts the relative clause.
*
The official website of the Pied Piper´s town with tourist information*
A good compilation about the Pied Piper*
www.wilsonsalmanac.com*
The entire text by Robert Browning and Illustrated by Kate Greenaway, 1888
