[Steppes] Holiday - Ratcacher's Day on July 22nd - Folk Tale

[Mike]

Heilsa,

During this past week in research for Period Week in Review,
came across this interesting article. I grew up hearing this tale
and I am sure so did many others. The information below spans
almost 900 years and threads of this tale can be found in
folk tales, contemporary literature, music, and film.

So instead of giving just a summary.

Ratcatcher's Day.
The Pied Piper of Hamelin. 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. 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 place names 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 [citation needed], 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 17th 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, a
nd 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, T
he 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. T
he 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".

The tale in 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 U.K..

• The 1999 release by Demons And Wizards features a song
entitled "The Whistler", which portrays the Pied Piper as a lurer f
or 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 all following a strange melody,
we're all following 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". The tale in film

• The story has been depicted many times on film:
1903, 1911, 1913, 1918, 1924, 1926, 1933, 1957, 1972,
1982 and 1985.

o 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

o The 1972 version "The Pied Piper" contained music
by Donovan, who also played the title role.

o 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.

The tale in contemporary literature
• 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 d
rive 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.


YIS,
Lord Michael Kettering
Combat Archer for the Condottieri