When I was growing up, one of my favorite German fairy tale vinyl records had the Rattenfänger von Hameln story, the Pied Piper of Hamelin Story. As a child, the idea of all those kids being snatched up because the town fathers didn’t want to pay the exterminator’s bill made a HUGE impression on me. I listened over and over, fascinated. So, naturally, a visit to Hameln had to happen. We arrived thinking there might be a plaque on the wall or a shop selling Grimm’s Fairy Tales, but instead, we found the Altstadt devoted to the Pied Piper!
What is the Pied Piper of Hamelin Story? And is the Pied Piper story true? Did 130 kids go missing back in 1284? What do historians say about the event? And, is it creepy or fun that almost 800 years later, the town celebrates its notorious past with rat-shaped rolls and Puppet shows?
July 22 is Ratcatcher Day!
NOTE- The German name for the town is Hameln, but Robert Browning needed an extra syllable to make his poem work, so he wrote it as Hamelin, which stuck in English. I will use both interchangeably in the post to keep things fun and confusing.
What is the Pied Piper of Hamelin Story?
Hameln sits on the German Fairy Tale Road, so it’s only natural that the Brothers Grimm would have included the story of the Rattenfänger von Hameln, the Pied Piper of Hamelin, in their Fairy Tale Collection.
According to the Grimm story:
Hameln was a comfortable town on the banks of the Weser River that grew rich from agriculture and milling. One day, rats overwhelmed the town. There had always been rats in Hameln, but this year, they swarmed like never before! The rats got into the barns and storehouses and ate everything except metal—grain, wood, cloth, and all. The townspeople had never seen anything like it, and they were desperate!
“We need help!” they told the mayor. “The cats are dead, and the poison isn’t working!”
“It just can’t be done without help,” said the mayor.
Just then, there was a knock at the door. A strange-looking man in colorful clothes holding a golden pipe stood there. He said he had helped other towns clear infestations and could help Hamelin.
“A Thousand Florins!” “Fifty Thousand Florins if you succeed!” shouted the desperate mayor.
So the Piper began to play. Slowly, he walked through the town, and at each home and barn, the rats came scurrying out to follow him. The Piper kept walking straight to the river, and the rats followed. He stepped into the water, and the rats all followed. Then, they were swept away and drowned—down to the last rat.
The people were grateful, but the greedy mayor had a change of heart. When the Piper asked him for payment, the mayor said, “Why should we pay you? The rats are dead and can’t come back. Not 50,000 Florins, not 1000 Florins.”
The Piper swore revenge, and the mayor laughed it off. What can a crazy man with a flute do?
At dawn on June 26, St John and St Paul’s Day, the children were drawn from their beds by a piping sound coming from the road. As the Pied Piper played his way through town, he gathered all the children behind him, and they followed him out of town and to the mountains where they vanished into a cave that sealed behind them. And a landslide crashed down to cover the opening. Only one child, who was lame and couldn’t keep up, came back to tell where the other children had gone.
Other Versions Tell a Similar Story.
In some editions of the Grimm Stories, two children were left behind: one was Blind, and the other was Lame. Still, another edition adds a third child who is deaf and cannot hear the Piper.
The Pied Piper’s flute has been described as golden, but also silver.
Some stories say that the children were taken to Koppenberg. A plaque on the Hameln Rathaus states:
“In the year 1284, after the birth of Christ in Hamel, one hundred and thirty children local children were to a piper and lost under the Köppen mountain.”
Note- The word “dasülvest” has fallen out of use in the German language, and isn’t in a modern dictionary. The closest meaning I could find is “born to this place,” meaning the children were born in Hameln.
The Real Story of the Pied Piper
People can scoff and say, “It’s just a Fairy Tale!“ meant to entertain and frighten children. But there is some truth to the tale. Exactly what happened may never be known. Still, around 1284, many children went missing from Hamelin.
There are a few theories about what happened to the children of Hameln.
- The Black Plague killed them. This explanation might explain the rats in the story (remember, rats brought the Plague to Europe), but the timing is slightly off. The Plague didn’t get to Europe until the 1300s.
- Murine Typhus, a rat born disease causing lesions killed them. The Pied Piper’s clothing was symbolic of the lesions. The children were all buried in a mass grave.
- Slave Traders took them. The idea is that the people of Hamelin experienced crop failures or rat infestation and couldn’t feed their kids, so they sold them.
- They were part of an emigration push to Transylvania or Poland. Some theorize that the Piper was a recruiter looking for young people to settle near the Baltic Sea. A Polish historian has been tracing family names in the region that go back to family names from Hamelin.
- The Children were caught up in the Children’s Crusade. Children made up the Fourth Crusade’s Army to take back Jerusalem. The idea was that innocent children had pure hearts and could thus reclaim the Holy City. (Spoilers, they didn’t even make it out of Europe.)
- They died from a mysterious illness or were swept up in the strange Dancing Sickness that swept through Europe at the time.
- They were taken and killed by a murderous Pedophile. This is one of the more depressing theories.
Whatever happened, the fact remains that a large group of Children from the town of Hamelin went missing in the late 1200s, and no one knows precisely where they went. The event was memorialized in a stained glass window installed in the 13th century (since destroyed). And again, in the 16th century, when a new gate was built for the city wall, they added another inscription.
“In 1556, 272 years after the magician led 130 children out of the town, this portal was erected.”
800 Years Later, Hamelin Still Remembers
The Bungelosenstrasse, the “street without drums,” is “remembered as the road the children took while following the Pied Piper. Even today, it is forbidden to play music or dance there. (In the dialect of medieval Hameln, a Bunge was a drum)
And yet, Hamelin LOVES its story. If you show up in town any day from May to September, you will find an Altstadt wholly taken over by references to the Pied Piper! I was astonished by all the stuffed, wooden, and candy rats tourists can buy. There are daily performances by Pipers in the streets and Plays (with children dressed in rat costumes) reenacting the tale. You can order Rat Tails in the local restaurants (a variation on Geschnetzeltes) and Rats Blood to drink (Champagne and Black Current, which sounds more like a Kir Royale).
And every day, at 1:05, 3:35, and 5:35 pm, the 29-bell carillon high in the Hochzeitshaus on Market Square plays the Pied Piper theme while wooden figures come out from behind iron doors to act out the story. (Why the odd time? So the music doesn’t interfere with the town’s church bells, of course).
Hameln has an astonishingly well-preserved Altstadt. Because it was an independent city-state for 150 years, from 1426 to 1572, and a member of the Hanseatic League, it became quite a wealthy city. Luckily, many of the Public Buildings, Churches, and Mansions of the “Weser Renaissance” style were preserved. It is a lovely city worth visiting (and you don’t HAVE to eat the rats…)
Learn More about Visiting Hameln, and other Grimm Fairy Tale Cities Here
–> Grimm Heimat
Closer to Home…
Jenny shared this photo of the Pied Piper Glockenspiel in Frankenmuth
photo by Jenny Thomas used with permission
Read The Pied Piper of Hamelin
The story many retellings… from Grimm to a modern interpretation.
The Pied Piper of Hamelin: Illustrated
The Pied Piper of Hamelin (Flip Up Fairy Tales)The Pied Piper of Hamelin by Renate Raecke (Adapter), Brothers Grimm (1-Sep-2014) HardcoverThe Pied Piper of Hamelin: A Fairy Tale Retelling : Modern Fairy Tale / Urban Fantasy
References:
Pied Piper of Hameln- Medical-Historical Interpretation
Ancient Origins- Myths and Legends, The Pied Piper
In Chronicles of the Pied Piper of Hamelin: The Pied Piper, Snowphia and the Missing Children, I explore life of the Pied Piper after that infamous incident, but also was curious to explore music magic so much so that in the second book, I’ve created a Narnia of music and magic. You can read the first 6 chapters for free at piedpiperofhamelin.com
What a beautiful city and a spectacular story.
Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed it