The Pied Piper of Hamelin (German: Rattenfänger von Hameln) is the subject of a legend concerning the departure or death of a great many children from the town of Hamelin (Hameln), Lower Saxony, Germany, in the Middle Ages. The earliest references describe a piper, dressed in pied (multicolored) clothing, leading the children away from the town never to return. In the 16th century the story was expanded into a full narrative, in which the piper is a rat-catcher hired by the town to lure rats away with his magic pipe. When the citizenry refuses to pay for this service, he retaliates by turning his magic on their children, leading them away as he had the rats. This version of the story spread as a fairy tale. This version has also appeared in the writings of, among others, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the Brothers Grimm and Robert Browning.
The story may reflect a historical event in which Hamelin lost its children. Theories have been proposed suggesting that the Pied Piper is a symbol of the children's death by plague or catastrophe. Other theories liken him to figures like Nicholas of Cologne, who is said to have lured away a great number of children on a disastrous Children's Crusade. A recent theory ties the departure of Hamelin's children to the Ostsiedlung, in which a number of Germans left their homes to colonize Eastern Europe. It is also a story about paying those who are due.
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In 1284, while the town of Hamelin was suffering from a rat infestation, a man dressed in pied clothing appeared, claiming to be a rat-catcher. He promised the townsmen a solution for their problem with the rats. The townsmen in turn promised to pay him for the removal of the rats. The man accepted, and played a musical pipe to lure the rats with a song into the Weser River, where all but one drowned. Despite his success, the people reneged on their promise and refused to pay the rat-catcher the full amount of money. The man left the town angrily, but vowed to return some time later, seeking revenge.
On Saint John and Paul's day while the inhabitants were in church, he played his pipe yet again, dressed in green, like a hunter, 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 never seen again. Depending on the version, at most three children remained behind. One of the children was lame and could not follow quickly enough, the second was deaf and followed the other children out of curiosity, and the last was blind and unable to see where they were going. These three informed the villagers of what had happened when they came out of church.
Another version relates that the Pied Piper led the children into following him to the top of Koppelberg Hill, where he took them to a beautiful land and had his wicked way,[1] or a place called Koppenberg Mountain.[2] This version states that the Piper returned the children after payment, or that he 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 stained glass window placed in the Church of Hamelin c. 1300. The window was described in several accounts between the 14th century and the 17th century. It was destroyed in 1660. Based on the surviving descriptions, a modern reconstruction of the window has been created by Hans Dobbertin (historian). 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 town. Also, Hamelin town records start with this event. The earliest written record is from the town chronicles in an entry from 1384 which states:
It is 100 years since our children left.[3]
Although research has been conducted for centuries, no explanation for the historical event is agreed upon. In any case, the rats were first added to the story in a version from c. 1559 and are absent from earlier accounts.
A number of theories suggest that children died of some natural causes and that the Piper was a symbolic figure of Death. Death is often portrayed dressed in motley, or "pied" clothing. Analogous themes which are associated with this theory include the Dance of Death, Totentanz or Danse Macabre, a common medieval type. Some of the scenarios that have been suggested as fitting this theory include that the children drowned in the river Weser, were killed in a landslide, or contracted some disease during an epidemic. Another modern interpretation reads the story as alluding to an event where Hamelin children were lured away by a pagan or heretic sect to forests near Coppenbrügge (the mysterious Koppen "hills" of the poem) for ritual dancing were they all perished during a sudden landslide or collapsing sinkhole.[4]
Others have suggested that the children left Hamelin to be part of a pilgrimage, a military campaign, or even a new Children's crusade (which is said to have occurred in 1212, not long before) but never returned to their parents. These theories see the unnamed Piper as their leader or a recruiting agent.
William Manchester's A World Lit Only by Fire places the events in 1484 (100 years after the mention in the town chronicles that "It is 100 years since our children left") and proposes that the Pied Piper was a psychopathic pedophile.
Added speculation on the migration is based on the idea that by the 13th century the area had too many people resulting in the oldest son owning all the land and power (majorat), leaving the rest as serfs.[5] The Black Death later destroyed that imbalance.[5] In any case, the motivation to leave was high and very much like the motivation for immigration to America in the 18th century i.e. freedom, opportunity, and land.
It has also been suggested that one reason the emigration of the children was never documented was that the children were sold to a recruiter from the Baltic region of Eastern Europe, a practice that was not uncommon at the time. In her essay Pied Piper Revisited, Sheila Harty states that surnames from the region settled are similar to those from Hamelin and that selling off illegitimate children, orphans or other children the town could not support is the more likely explanation. She states further that this may account for the lack of records of the event in the town chronicles.[3] In his book, The Pied Piper: A Handbook, Wolfgang Mieder states that historical documents exist showing that people from the area including Hamelin did help settle parts of Transylvania.[6] Transylvania had suffered under lengthy Mongol invasions of Central Europe, led by two grandsons of Genghis Khan and which date from around the time of the earliest appearance of the legend of the piper, the early 13th Century.
In the version of the legend posted on the official website for the town of Hameln, another aspect of the emigration theory is presented:
Among the various interpretations, reference to the colonization of East Europe starting from Low Germany is the most plausible one: The "Children of Hameln" would have been in those days citizens willing to emigrate being recruited by landowners to settle in Moravia, East Prussia, Pomerania or in the Teutonic Land. It is assumed that in past times all people of a town were referred to as "children of the town" or "town children" as is frequently done today. The "Legend of the children's Exodus" was later connected to the "Legend of expelling the rats". This most certainly refers to the rat plagues being a great threat in the medieval milling town and the more or less successful professional rat catchers.[7]
This version states that "children" may simply have referred to residents of Hameln who chose to emigrate and not necessarily to youths.
Historian Ursula Sautter, citing the work of Linguist Jurgen Udolph, offers this hypothesis in support of the emigration theory:
"After the defeat of the Danes at the Battle of Bornhoved in 1227," explains Udolph, "the region south of the Baltic Sea, which was then inhabited by Slavs, became available for colonization by the Germans." The bishops and dukes of Pomerania, Brandenburg, Uckermark and Prignitz sent out glib "locators," medieval recruitment officers, offering rich rewards to those who were willing to move to the new lands. Thousands of young adults from Lower Saxony and Westphalia headed east. And as evidence, about a dozen Westphalian place names show up in this area. Indeed there are five villages called Hindenburg running in a straight line from Westphalia to Pomerania, as well as three eastern Spiegelbergs and a trail of etymology from Beverungen south of Hamelin to Beveringen northwest of Berlin to Beweringen in modern Poland.[8]
Udolph favors the hypothesis that the Hamelin youths wound up in what is now Poland.[9] Genealogist Dick Eastman cited Udolph's research on Hamelin surnames that have shown up in Polish phonebooks:
Linguistics professor Jurgen Udolph says that 130 children did vanish on a June day in the year 1284 from the German village of Hamelin (Hameln in German). Udolph entered all the known family names in the village at that time and then started searching for matches elsewhere. He found that the same surnames occur with amazing frequency in Priegnitz and Uckermark, both north of Berlin. He also found the same surnames in the former Pomeranian region, which is now a part of Poland. Udolph surmises that the children were actually unemployed youths who had been sucked into the German drive to colonize its new settlements in Eastern Europe. The Pied Piper may never have existed as such, but, says the professor, "There were characters known as Lokator who roamed northern Germany trying to recruit settlers for the East." Some of them were brightly dressed, and all were silver-tongued. Professor Udolph can show that the Hamelin exodus should be linked with the Battle of Bornhoeved in 1227 which broke the Danish hold on Eastern Europe. That opened the way for German colonization, and by the latter part of the thirteenth century there were systematic attempts to bring able-bodied youths to Brandenburg and Pomerania. The settlement, according to the professor's name search, ended up near Starogard in what is now northwestern Poland. A village near Hamelin, for example, is called Beverungen and has an almost exact counterpart called Beveringen, near Pritzwalk, north of Berlin and another called Beweringen, near Starogard. Local Polish telephone books list names that are not the typical Slavic names one would expect in that region. Instead, many of the names seem to be derived from German names that were common in the village of Hamelin in the thirteenth century. In fact, the names in today's Polish telephone directories include Hamel, Hamler and Hamelnikow, all apparently derived from the name of the original village.[10]
Decan Lude of Hamelin was reported, c. 1384, to have in his possession a chorus book containing a Latin verse giving an eyewitness account of the event.[11] The verse was reportedly written by his grandmother. This chorus book is believed to have been lost since the late 17th century. The odd-looking name 'Decan Lude' may possibly indicate a priest holding the position of Dean (Latin: decanus, modern German: Dekan or Dechant) whose name was Ludwig; but as yet he has proved impossible to trace.
The Lueneburg manuscript (c. 1440–50) gives an early German account of the event:[12]
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This appears to be the oldest surviving account. Koppen (Old German meaning "hills") seems to be a reference to one of several hills surrounding Hamelin. Which of them was intended by the verse's author remains uncertain. Another possible meaning of the words 'to calvari bi den koppen verloren' could refer to the dutch 'koppen' which means heads. It could therefore be a double poetic meaning of 'lost in the hills', as well as 'lost their heads'. The latter could mean they were beheaded, or killed, or perhaps imply that they went mad, and lost the traditional way of their parents' thinking.
Calvari which translates directly to 'Calvary' refers to the Christian religion 'place of the skulls' where the crucifixion took place and could also refer to a situation involving great suffering. This would explain some of the above theories. In the sense of the exodus from Europe, it could mean that the people who stayed in Hamelin assumed that the people who had left with the 'piper' or lokator had been convinced to make the worst possible choice and had gone to 'calvari' being presumed dead. The piper in this sense being a good 'orator' able to convince a crowd as in religion. Related in Germanic languages to the word 'koppen' is the word 'to buy' but this may be unrelated to the story although it took place on market day of the Saints.
The herb valerian was used by rat-catchers to attract the rats and entice them away as it has a smell that attracts rats. Valerian can also be used to attract cats, leading one to believe that the piper may have led the cats away first and then threatened to take their children. There is a possible theory that the piper gave the children valerian and that this had a relaxing effect on them much like alcohol or perhaps some were given an overdose.
An alternate meaning of the poem, relating to theories cited above and unrelated to the legend and stories written by the Brothers Grimm and other creators of fairy tales, is that the piper himself was executed on this day, perhaps because he had misled or abused the children, or for another reason. However, the double meaning referring to the children as victims having 'lost their heads' as well as being 'lost in the hills' does provide a typical ambiguous poetic explanation.
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. During public parades which include music, including wedding processions, the band will stop playing upon reaching this street and resume upon reaching the other side.
In 1556, De miraculis sui temporis (Latin: Concerning the Wonders of his Times) by Jobus Fincelius mentions the tale. The author identifies the Piper with the Devil.
Somewhere between 1559 and 1565, Count Froben Christoph von Zimmern included a version in his Zimmerische Chronik.[13] This appears to be the earliest account which mentions the plague of rats. von Zimmern dates the event only as 'several hundred years ago' (vor etlichen hundert jarn [sic]), so that his version throws no light on the conflict of dates (see next paragraph).
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); he does not give his source. (It is unlikely to have been von Zimmern, since his manuscript chronicle was not discovered until 1776.) Verstegan includes the reference to the rats and the idea that the lost children turned up in Transylvania. The phrase 'Pide [sic] Piper' occurs in his version and seems to have been coined by him. Curiously enough his date is entirely different from that given above: July 22, 1376; this may suggest that two events, a migration in 1284 and a plague of rats in 1376, have become fused together.
The story is given, with a different date, in Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy of 1621, where it is used as an example of supernatural forces: 'At Hammel in Saxony, ann. 1484, 20 Junii, the devil, in likeness of a pied piper, carried away 130 children that were never after seen.' He does not give his immediate source.
Verstegan's account was copied in Nathaniel Wanley's Wonders of the Little World (1687), which was the immediate source of Robert Browning's well-known poem (see nineteenth century below). Verstegan's account is also repeated in William Ramesey's Wormes (1668)—"... that most remarkable story in Verstegan, of the Pied Piper, that carryed away a hundred and sixty Children from the Town of Hamel in Saxony, on the 22. of July, Anno Dom. 1376. A wonderful permission of GOD to the Rage of the Devil".
In 1803, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote a poem based on the story that was later set to music by Hugo Wolf. 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, known as the Brothers Grimm, drawing from eleven sources included the tale in their collection "Deutsche Sagen", 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).
Using the Verstegan/Wanley version of the tale and adopting the 1376 date, Robert Browning wrote a poem of that name which was published in 1842.[14] Browning's verse retelling is notable for its humor, wordplay, and jingling rhymes.
China Miéville's 1998 novel King Rat reimagines the Pied Piper as a flautist adding samples to drum and bass music and is opposed by sentient rats in London.
Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel, The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, published in 2001, gives a typically distorted version of the Italic texttale.
The Hooters 1986 top-40 hit "Where Do The Children Go?" refers to the Pied Piper in the song's chorus: "Where do the children go, between the bright night and darkest day? Where do the children go, and who's that deadly piper who leads them away?"
Wild Magic by Cat Weatherill tells the legend with a twist, following the children as the piper brings them to a world of magic where they are transformed into animals.
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 words "pictures of" are pied-piped in front of the relative pronoun, which normally starts the relative clause.
Some researchers believe that the tale has inspired the common English phrase "pay the piper".[16] To "pay the piper" now means to face the inevitable consequences of one's actions, possibly alluding to the story where the villagers broke their promise to pay the Piper for his assistance in ridding the town of the rats.
The phrase is also attributed to meaning to recompense a minstrel or similar musician (such as a piper) in the mediaeval period for services rendered. If a minstrel was not paid for his services by a hosting nobleman, they and future minstrels would not return to that particular nobleman's estate. Minstrels were a significant status symbol, hence refusing payment would be great mark on the nobleman's reputation and a noticeable loss in his social standing. Hence the phrase may sometimes be heard in reference to a financial transaction. Due to both the Pied Piper's tale, and the growing importance of social occasion over traditional heraldry occurring in the same historical period, it is a speculation that both origins resulted in an identical phrase with two separate meanings.
Also, some experts on pedophilia, such as Ken Lanning of the FBI, in writing about the seduction of children by some pedophiles, have used the term the "Pied Piper effect" to describe a "unique ability to identify with children."[17]