The Real Pied Piper Of Hamelin
If you’re like me, you’re familiar with the story of “The Pied Piper of Hamelin”. It’s a story I remember from my youth and have recently rediscovered as my 2-year-old has taken a fancy for the tale. You might know the Brothers Grimm version, the Robert Browning poem, or as is my recent experience, the Disney version, “Pied Piper Mickey”. Whichever version you’re familiar with, they all follow more or less the same pattern.
Back in fairy tale times, the town of Hamelin had a rat problem. One day, a man shows up, often described as flamboyantly dressed and carrying a flute of some sort. The man offers to get rid of the rats for a fee. The man entrances the rats with his music and leads them away, whether that’s to a watery grave or in the version I remember, to a set of caves outside of town.
The Piper returns to Hamelin and the town refuses to pay him. The Piper then starts playing again except this time it is the children of the town that are entranced. The children are led away to the same location of the rats, never to be seen again.
It’s not the most popular tale in the genre but it is one that has stuck around for centuries. The real town of Hamelin in Lower Saxony, Germany, uses the legend as part of its tourist economy involving guided tours, themed meals at restaurants, and multiple reenactment venues. People love coming to the town and walking through a fairy tale.
There’s one problem. “The Pied Piper of Hamelin” isn’t a fairy tale. It’s probably a true story.
According to an inscribed façade from 1602 around a Hamelin house from much earlier, “A.D. 1284- on the 26th of June – the day of St John and St Paul – 130 children – born in Hamelin – were led out of the town by a piper wearing multicolored clothes. After passing Calvary near the Koppenberg they disappeared forever.”
Beyond that, the towns own records from 1384 note that “It is 100 years since our children left.” There were also records of such an event in the stained glass of the church (destroyed in the 17th century) and a 15th century manuscript referring to 130 children vanishing from town on June 26th, 1284.
I don’t know if Hamelin ever had a rat problem, though didn’t everyone back then? But the town has maintained for over 600 years that something akin to the legend actually happened.
So, the obvious question: where did the children go?
Take your pick of theories. Some historians have suggested the children were recruited into a children’s crusade to retake the Holy Land. It has been suggested that the children died in the Black Plague though if you’re up on global pandemics, you know there’s about a 60-year gap between the two events. Maybe the children danced themselves to death in the mass hysteria phenomenon known as “St Vitus’ Dance”. Given the date, the Piper might have simply led the children to the midsummer festival.
Most likely though, the children were recruited to help colonize newly liberated German land. Hamelin family names start showing up in new German territories outside of Berlin with notable frequency. Times were tough, people were poor, and this colorful musician was offering opportunity to the children and one less mouth to feed to the families. There is some documentation of this tactic being used in Germany at the time.
We don’t genuinely know what specifically happened in Hamelin on June 26th, 1284, but we can be pretty sure that something wild happened.
