The Pied Piper and Hamelin

The legend of the Pied Piper and Hamelin is hard to forget. It goes down in history as the tale that put the tourist town of Hamelin on the map!

Pied Piper statue of Hamelin

The Pied Piper legend was written in the middle ages and has had many rewrites, storytellings, and drawings of the events. The first telling is presumed to have been told by Robert Browning and was the first Piper story written in English. The famous Brothers Grimm would go on to tell their own version of the tale with striking illustrations in 1816.

Hamelin is a beautiful town located in Lower Saxony along the River Weser. The town is crawling with quaint shops, bookstores, and relaxing, well-kept parks. It's a great tourist town with an incredible abundance of restaurants serving local German treats.

But that's not the only thing Hamelin was crawling with. The story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin started with thousands and thousands of ... rats.

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RATS? Rats.

Let's have a story time, shall we? It's certainly not for the faint of heart. But it's such an important part of history.

The story started in 1284 when Hamelin's quaint and quiet town began to see a few more rats scurrying around than usual. The townsfolk then turned to the mayor as the rat crisis continued to spread. The rats were climbing into houses, out of sewers, through floorboards, and scuddling through every crevasse they could squeeze their sneaky, slinky bodies through. It got so bad that even in the dead silence of the night, all one could hear was the sound of the rats.

The people of Hamelin had heard of a mysterious man dressed in colorful clothes and funny shoes who claimed to be a rat catcher.

The play of the pied piper preformed in hamelinDuring my time in Hamelin with Oma, we stumbled upon this man ... look familiar? There was a reenactment of the tale being performed right in front of us!

Then one desperate day, a tall man with colorful clothes, a feathery hat, and funny shoes appeared, claiming to be the solution to all their pest problems. The people were skeptical. How could just one man get rid of millions of rats?

He held up his pipe, his trusty instrument and exclaimed, "With this!"

The town burst into laughter. But the mayor was intrigued, and his people were desperate. He offered the Piper a sum of money that he couldn't refuse. The Piper started playing a mesmerizing tune, and the rats came out with the first shrill notes of the pipe. They scurried from left and right, up and down, and out into the street to follow the piper and his wonderful music.

The Pied Piper led the army of rats outside the town and into the Weser River, where the pests drowned. The citizens of Hamelin couldn't believe it, and they danced with joy for the plague of rats was gone!

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A Greedy Town vs Terrible Revenge

Now this may seem like a happy ending to a victorious tale. But the story isn't quite over.

The merry crowds were amazed and grateful for what the Piper had done. The astonished mayor was filled with gratitude, but he was also full of greed. He refused to give the Piper the amount agreed on. Outraged, the Pied Piper stormed off but yelled a warning for the whole town to hear that he would be back for revenge that no one would forget.

And that it was.

That night, the Piper came back to play out his schemes. He played his beautiful tune on his pipe, but not to attract any stray rats left behind. The music was so hypnotizing that it led the children from their homes. The Piper played until all of the town's children followed the music through the streets. He led them out of town through the town gates and to the cliffs, where they were never seen again.

Pied piper illustrationThis famous Pied Piper illustration is found in many children's books!

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A matter of money for the "unpaid" Piper

The tale has been told in so many ways that the ending has a few different possibilities. All dark, all terrible, and all over the matter of money.

So one could say that the moral of the story is to never trust a stranger in colorful tights. But one might also say the story's moral is that if someone rids your town of a massive infestation of rats, you say thank you and pay what was agreed upon..

As I mentioned earlier, it's not for the faint of heart. But it has an important moral, aside from the silly ones. There's no room for greed in this world.

I'm less of a storyteller than the great writers. I'm definitely no Grimm Brother, but I tried to make it sound as dramatic and intense as it is. I hope you get the gist of the spooky tale.

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The impact of the Pied Piper and Hamelin 

Whether true or not, the Pied Piper story has led Hamelin to become a huge tourist attraction. There is so much to interact with as soon as you step into the city center. Every hour, a massive bell will ring in the tune of Piper's song; this lasts a few minutes. As the music plays, a little statue of him pops up and dances around. It's a real crowd attraction!

Hamelin's history is told with a theatrical play held just in front of the church at the city center to reenact the events. I suppose some cool things came from the dark story.

Oma and I were lucky enough to catch the show for ourselves. We had just sat down with very fancy donuts before catching, out of the corner of our eyes, little kids dressed as rats. We thought, "Ummm....?" But we followed to see they were following a man dressed as the Piper. Then we got a whole Pied Piper show!

After you see the play and listen to the enchanting tune played on the bells, make way by cobblestoned streets to the souvenir shops. Here one can find books of the Pied Piper and Hamelin. Many have been rewritten to be a little less … scary and are sold as children's books.

One can also buy rat figurines, rat-themed bookmarks, and iconic postcards with rat cobblestones on them.

That's right. Scattered through the town, every few feet, look down! Many cobblestones have golden rats engraved in them. No, not real ones. See for yourself!

Rat cobblestones in the Hamelin streetsThe hundreds of itty bitty rat cobblestones gave me a good laugh.

The stones are so fun, but kind of creepy after knowing the backstory. They do, however, make for a fun activity. See how many rats you can count as you walk by. Or, even better, try hopping from rat to rat. Like a creepy Hamelin hopscotch, if you will.

Talk about being in the right place at the right time.

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'Written in the sand"... More like 'Written in the window'.

(Not my best pun)...

For three centuries, a stained-glass window in the church of Hamelin depicted the tragic story. Its beautiful colors tell an eerie tale, showing the Piper playing his tune while white-dressed children dance along.

The earliest recording of the window was in the year 1300, shortly after the incident would have occurred. The question racking brains for centuries, though: did it happen?

If not, why would a massive art piece in honor of the children of Hamelin be placed in the church for remembrance? Why go to all the trouble and money putting it up if it didn't happen?

Hamelin church in the city centerThe famous church of Hamelin. Marktkirche St. Nicolai (Market Church St. Nicolai)

It's said that only a handful of children were spared from the Piper, and they were either too weak to keep following, deaf and couldn't hear the music, or blind. And those kids are the ones who told the parents and people of Hamelin what happened.

No one really knows the truth of what happened, if it did at all. Or, who the Pied Piper was. Regardless, fairy tale or not, it gave Hamelin a ton of fame. People will travel from all around Germany to come see the famous town of rats.

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Hamelin's history is something you can't miss when you visit. It's hard to miss all the honorary Piper memorabilia.

As we shopped around and enjoyed tasty treats, we hopped on rat stones, listened to the bells, saw a show, and were met with handmade metal art structures of the Piper along the side streets. My favorite one, however, was this guy, lounging in the street, looking over the town as if saying, "Ahhh, not a single rat in sight. All thanks to me".

Piper lounging on bench in HamelinWe caught the Pied Piper lounging on the job in Hamelin

Now, it's up to you if this is a story you'll be reading to your grandkids one day. Maybe if you really want to freak them out. But it's not a great bedtime story, that's for sure. I recommend the play if you want a more family-friendly way to tell the story! It was a fun and more lighthearted way of telling the tale.

Seeing a town's dedication to keeping a tale alive is amazing. And to have an almost completely themed day trip when you visit is doubly amazing!

Will you be adding Hamelin to your must-experience bucket list?

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