The Pied Piper of Hamelin
Encyclopedia
The Pied Piper of Hamelin 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.
. 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, or a place called Koppenberg Mountain. 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.
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:
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.
. 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
.
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
proposes that the Pied Piper was a psychopathic pedophile.
), leaving the rest as serfs. The Black Death
later destroyed that imbalance. In any case, the motivation to leave was high and very much like the motivation for emigration 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. 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
. 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:
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:
Udolph favors the hypothesis that the Hamelin youths wound up in what is now Poland. Genealogist Dick Eastman cited Udolph's research on Hamelin surnames that have shown up in Polish phonebooks:
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 17th century. The odd-looking name 'Decan Lude' may possibly indicate a priest holding the position of Dean
' onMouseout='HidePop("22555")' href="/topics/German_language">modern German
: or ) whose name was Ludwig; but as yet he has proved impossible to trace.
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.
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
. 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: , 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".
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. Browning's verse retelling is notable for its humor, wordplay, and jingling rhymes.
'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 tale.
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?"
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". 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."
Hamelin
Hamelin is a town on the river Weser in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Hamelin-Pyrmont and has a population of 58,696 ....
(Hameln), Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony is a German state situated in north-western Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen states of Germany...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, 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
Rat-catcher
Rat-catching is the occupation of catching rats as a form of pest control. In developed countries the role may be merged with, or the title inflated to, Pest Control Operative or Pest Technician....
hired by the town to lure rats away with his magic pipe
Pipe (instrument)
Pipe describes a number of musical instruments, historically referring to perforated wind instruments. The word is an onomatopoeia, and comes from the tone which can resemble that of a bird chirping.-Folk 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
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
. This version has also appeared in the writings of, among others, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
, the Brothers Grimm
Brothers Grimm
The Brothers Grimm , Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm , were German academics, linguists, cultural researchers, and authors who collected folklore and published several collections of it as Grimm's Fairy Tales, which became very popular...
and Robert Browning
Robert Browning
Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets.-Early years:...
.
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
Children's Crusade
The Children's Crusade is the name given to a variety of fictional and factual events which happened in 1212 that combine some or all of these elements: visions by a French or German boy; an intention to peacefully convert Muslims in the Holy Land to Christianity; bands of children marching to...
. A recent theory ties the departure of Hamelin's children to the Ostsiedlung
Ostsiedlung
Ostsiedlung , also called German eastward expansion, was the medieval eastward migration and settlement of Germans from modern day western and central Germany into less-populated regions and countries of eastern Central Europe and Eastern Europe. The affected area roughly stretched from Slovenia...
, in which a number of Germans left their homes to colonize Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
. It is also a story about paying those who are due.
Plot
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-catcherRat-catcher
Rat-catching is the occupation of catching rats as a form of pest control. In developed countries the role may be merged with, or the title inflated to, Pest Control Operative or Pest Technician....
. 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
Weser River
The Weser is a river in north-western Germany. Formed at Hann. Münden by the Fulda and Werra, it flows through Lower Saxony, then reaching the historic port city of Bremen before emptying into the North Sea 50 km further north at Bremerhaven, which is also a seaport...
, 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
John and Paul
For the musical partnership of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, see Lennon/McCartneyJohn and Paul are saints in the Roman Catholic Church. They were martyred at Rome on 26 June. They should not be confused with the famous apostles of the same name...
'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, or a place called Koppenberg Mountain. 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.
History
The earliest mention of the story seems to have been on a stained glassStained glass
The term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works produced from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings...
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.
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.
Natural causes
A number of theories suggest that children died of some natural causes and that the Piper was a symbolic figure of DeathDeath (personification)
The concept of death as a sentient entity has existed in many societies since the beginning of history. In English, Death is often given the name Grim Reaper and, from the 15th century onwards, came to be shown as a skeletal figure carrying a large scythe and clothed in a black cloak with a hood...
. Death is often portrayed dressed in motley, or "pied" clothing. Analogous themes which are associated with this theory include the Dance of Death
Danse Macabre
Dance of Death, also variously called Danse Macabre , Danza de la Muerte , Dansa de la Mort , Danza Macabra , Dança da Morte , Totentanz , Dodendans , is an artistic genre of late-medieval allegory on the universality of death: no matter one's...
, 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
Landslide
A landslide or landslip is a geological phenomenon which includes a wide range of ground movement, such as rockfalls, deep failure of slopes and shallow debris flows, which can occur in offshore, coastal and onshore environments...
, or contracted some disease during an epidemic
Epidemic
In epidemiology, an epidemic , occurs when new cases of a certain disease, in a given human population, and during a given period, substantially exceed what is expected based on recent experience...
.
Others have suggested that the children left Hamelin to be part of a pilgrimage
Pilgrimage
A pilgrimage is a journey or search of great moral or spiritual significance. Typically, it is a journey to a shrine or other location of importance to a person's beliefs and faith...
, a military campaign, or even a new Children's crusade
Children's Crusade
The Children's Crusade is the name given to a variety of fictional and factual events which happened in 1212 that combine some or all of these elements: visions by a French or German boy; an intention to peacefully convert Muslims in the Holy Land to Christianity; bands of children marching to...
(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
William Manchester
William Raymond Manchester was an American author, biographer, and historian from Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, notable as the bestselling author of 18 books that have been translated into over 20 languages...
's A World Lit Only by Fire
A World Lit Only by Fire
A World Lit Only by Fire by American historian William Manchester, is an informal history of the European Middle Ages, structured into three sections: The Medieval Mind, The Shattering, and One Man Alone...
proposes that the Pied Piper was a psychopathic pedophile.
Emigration theory
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 (majoratMajorat
Majorat is the right of succession to property according to age . A majorat would be inherited by the oldest son, or if there was no son, the nearest relative. This law existed in some of the European countries and was designed to prevent the distribution of wealthy estates between many members of...
), leaving the rest as serfs. The Black Death
Black Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...
later destroyed that imbalance. In any case, the motivation to leave was high and very much like the motivation for emigration 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. 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
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
. Transylvania had suffered under lengthy Mongol invasions
Mongol invasion of Europe
The resumption of the Mongol invasion of Europe, during which the Mongols attacked medieval Rus' principalities and the powers of Poland and Hungary, was marked by the Mongol invasion of Rus starting in 21 December 1237...
of Central Europe, led by two grandsons of Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan , born Temujin and occasionally known by his temple name Taizu , was the founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death....
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.
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.
Udolph favors the hypothesis that the Hamelin youths wound up in what is now Poland. 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 BornhoevedBattle of Bornhöved (1227)The Battle of Bornhöved took place on 22 July 1227 near Bornhöved in Holstein. Count Adolf IV of Schauenburg and Holstein — leading an army consisting of troops from the cities of Lübeck and Hamburg, about 1000 Dithmarsians and combined troops of Holstein next to various north German nobles —...
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.
Fourteenth-century Decan Lude chorus book
Decan Lude of Hamelin was reported, c. 1384, to have in his possession a chorus book containing a LatinLatin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
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 17th century. The odd-looking name 'Decan Lude' may possibly indicate a priest holding the position of Dean
Dean (religion)
A dean, in a church context, is a cleric holding certain positions of authority within a religious hierarchy. The title is used mainly in the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church.-Anglican Communion:...
' onMouseout='HidePop("22555")' href="/topics/German_language">modern German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
: or ) whose name was Ludwig; but as yet he has proved impossible to trace.
Fifteenth-century Lueneburg manuscript
The Lueneburg manuscript (c. 1440–50) gives an early German account of the event:
In the year of 1284, on the day of Saints John and PaulJohn and PaulFor the musical partnership of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, see Lennon/McCartneyJohn and Paul are saints in the Roman Catholic Church. They were martyred at Rome on 26 June. They should not be confused with the famous apostles of the same name...
on 26 June
130 children born in Hamelin were seduced
By a piper, dressed in all kinds of colours,
and lost at the place of execution near the koppen.
This appears to be the oldest surviving account. Koppen (Old German
Old German
Old German usually refers to Old High German, but it could also refer to:*Old Low German *Altdeutsche Tracht , a dress style popular among early 19th century German radicals...
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
Valerian (herb)
Valerian is a hardy perennial flowering plant, with heads of sweetly scented pink or white flowers which bloom in the summer months. Valerian flower extracts were used as a perfume in the sixteenth century....
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.
Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century sources
In 1556, De miraculis sui temporis (Latin: Concerning the Wonders of his Times) by Jobus FinceliusJobus Fincelius
Job Fincelius was a 16th century humanist and physician. Born Hiob Fincel , he studied at Erfurt, Jena, and Wittenberg before becoming a master of philosophy at Wittenberg . In 1562, he was professor and assistant of medicine at Weimar...
mentions the tale. The author identifies the Piper with the Devil
Devil
The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...
.
Somewhere between 1559 and 1565, Count Froben Christoph von Zimmern included a version in his Zimmerische Chronik
Zimmern Chronicle
The Zimmern Chronicle is a family chronicle describing the lineage and history of the noble family of Zimmern, based in Meßkirch, Germany. It was written in a Swabian variety of Early New High German by Count Froben Christoph von Zimmern...
. 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
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
account is that of Richard Rowland Verstegan (1548 – c. 1636), an antiquary and religious controversialist of partly Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
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
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
. 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: , 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
Robert Burton (scholar)
Robert Burton was an English scholar at Oxford University, best known for the classic The Anatomy of Melancholy. He was also the incumbent of St Thomas the Martyr, Oxford, and of Segrave in Leicestershire.-Life:...
's The Anatomy of Melancholy
The Anatomy of Melancholy
The Anatomy of Melancholy The Anatomy of Melancholy The Anatomy of Melancholy (Full title: The Anatomy of Melancholy, What it is: With all the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Several Cures of it. In Three Maine Partitions with their several Sections, Members, and Subsections...
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
Nathaniel Wanley
Nathaniel Wanley was an English clergyman and writer, known for The Wonders of the Little World.-Life:He was born at Leicester in 1634, and baptised on 27 March. His father was a mercer. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and graduated B.A. in 1653, M.A. in 1657. His first preferment...
's Wonders of the Little World (1687), which was the immediate source of Robert Browning
Robert Browning
Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets.-Early years:...
'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".
Nineteenth-century versions
In 1803, Johann Wolfgang von GoetheJohann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
wrote a poem based on the story that was later set to music by Hugo Wolf
Hugo Wolf
Hugo Wolf was an Austrian composer of Slovene origin, particularly noted for his art songs, or lieder. He brought to this form a concentrated expressive intensity which was unique in late Romantic music, somewhat related to that of the Second Viennese School in concision but utterly unrelated in...
. He incorporated references to the story in his version of Faust
Faust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Faust's tale is the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical...
. The first part of the Drama was first published in 1808 and the second in 1832.
Jakob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
Wilhelm Grimm
Wilhelm Carl Grimm was a German author, the younger of the Brothers Grimm.-Life and work:...
, known as the Brothers Grimm
Brothers Grimm
The Brothers Grimm , Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm , were German academics, linguists, cultural researchers, and authors who collected folklore and published several collections of it as Grimm's Fairy Tales, which became very popular...
, 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
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
).
Using the Verstegan/Wanley version of the tale and adopting the 1376 date, Robert Browning
Robert Browning
Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets.-Early years:...
wrote a poem of that name which was published in 1842. Browning's verse retelling is notable for its humor, wordplay, and jingling rhymes.
Twentieth-century versions
China MiévilleChina Miéville
China Tom Miéville is an award-winning English fantasy fiction writer. He is fond of describing his work as "weird fiction" , and belongs to a loose group of writers sometimes called New Weird. He is also active in left-wing politics as a member of the Socialist Workers Party...
's 1998 novel King Rat
King Rat (1998 novel)
King Rat is the debut novel by China Miéville. Unlike his Bas-Lag novels, it is not a New Weird story but an Urban Fantasy, set in London during the late 1990's. It follows the life of Saul Garamond after the death of his father and his meeting with King Rat...
reimagines the Pied Piper as a flautist adding samples to drum and bass
Drum and bass
Drum and bass is a type of electronic music which emerged in the late 1980s. The genre is characterized by fast breakbeats , with heavy bass and sub-bass lines...
music and is opposed by sentient rats in London.
Terry Pratchett
Terry Pratchett
Sir Terence David John "Terry" Pratchett, OBE is an English novelist, known for his frequently comical work in the fantasy genre. He is best known for his popular and long-running Discworld series of comic fantasy novels...
's Discworld
Discworld
Discworld is a comic fantasy book series by English author Sir Terry Pratchett, set on the Discworld, a flat world balanced on the backs of four elephants which, in turn, stand on the back of a giant turtle, Great A'Tuin. The books frequently parody, or at least take inspiration from, J. R. R....
novel, The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents
The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents
The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents is the 28th novel in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, published in 2001. It was the first Discworld book to be aimed at the younger market; this was followed by The Wee Free Men in 2003...
, published in 2001, gives a typically distorted version of the tale.
The Hooters
The Hooters
The Hooters is an American rock band from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. By combining a mix of rock and roll, reggae, ska and folk music, The Hooters first gained major commercial success in the United States in the mid 1980s due to heavy radio and MTV airplay of several songs including "All You...
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?"
As metaphor
Merriam Webster definitions- a charismatic person who attracts followers
- one that offers strong but delusive enticement
- a leader who makes irresponsible promises
Allusions in linguistics
In linguisticsLinguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
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
Wh-movement
Wh-movement is a syntactic phenomenon found in many languages around the world, in which interrogative words or phrases show a special word order. Unlike ordinary phrases, such wh-words appear at the beginning of an interrogative clause...
. 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
Relative pronoun
A relative pronoun is a pronoun that marks a relative clause within a larger sentence. It is called a relative pronoun because it relates the relative clause to the noun that it modifies. In English, the relative pronouns are: who, whom, whose, whosever, whosesoever, which, and, in some...
, which normally starts the relative clause.
Some researchers believe that the tale has inspired the common English phrase "pay the piper". 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
Pedophilia
As a medical diagnosis, pedophilia is defined as a psychiatric disorder in adults or late adolescents typically characterized by a primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescent children...
, 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."
See also
- List of literary accounts of the Pied Piper
- Pied Piper of Hamelin in popular culture
External links
- Professor Ashliman of the University of PittsburghUniversity of PittsburghThe University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787 on what was then the American frontier, Pitt is one of the oldest continuously chartered institutions of...
quotes the Grimm's "Children of Hamelin" in full, as well as a number of similar and related legends. - An 1888 illustrated version of Robert Browning's poem (Illustrated by Kate GreenawayKate GreenawayCatherine Greenaway , known as Kate Greenaway, was an English children's book illustrator and writer, who spent much of her childhood at Rolleston, Nottinghamshire. She studied at what is now the Royal College of Art in London, which at that time had a separate section for women, and was headed by...
) - The 725th anniversary of the Pied Piper in 2009