26th June: The Pied Piper of Hamelin

On this date in 1284, According to legend, the Pied Piper reappeared in the German town of Hamelin. He had rid the town of Rats but the townspeople refused to pay him, so he piped away 130 children and sealed them in a cave on Koppenburg Mountain.

1. Hamelin is a real place - it's in Lower Saxony in Germany. One of its big tourist attractions is a re-enactment of the Pied Piper tale each summer.
2. When the piper lured the rats into the river, they didn't all drown. One was left alive.
3. Not all the children vanished forever, either. Depending on which version of the story you are listening to, up to three children were left behind - one who was lame and couldn't keep up; one who was deaf and couldn't hear the music, and one who was blind and couldn't see where to go. This child, or children, were able to tell the adults what happened when they came out of church and found the other children gone.
4. What actually became of the children varies according to the version of the tale, as well. They may have been drowned, like the rats, or taken through a portal to another world which may or may not have been a pleasant one. In some versions the townspeople eventually pay up and get their children back.
5. There may have been an element of truth in the tale. Hamelin's church had a stained glass window depicting the piper and children dressed in white; and it is thought to have been created to commemorate a real life tragic event. There is also a written evidence in the town's records from the 14th century which states, "It is 100 years since our children left."
6. So if the tale is based on fact, what really did happen to all those children? Naturally, theories abound: they died of plague; they were killed in an accident - a landslide, or drowning in the river; they were recruited by a pagan sect and went away to love in the forest, where they disappeared down a sinkhole; they left to take part in a pilgrimage or crusade and never came back; the piper was a paedophile or white slave trader; the people had more children than the town could support, so the superfluous children were deliberately sold off or invited to emigrate.
7. Research into family names has offered some evidence for the emigration theory. Family names from the village of Hamelin in the 13th century crop up with surprising regularity in parts of Poland.
8. There is a street in the town where singing and music are forbidden by a very old law, presumably out of respect for the lost children, who were last seen on this street before they vanished. Whenever there is a parade or procession involving music, the bands must stop playing as they pass this street and not start again until they enter another street.
9. A building in the town with an inscription about the legend has become known as "The Rat Catcher's House". Today, the house is a restaurant with a Pied Piper theme.
10. June 26th is marked in Hamelin as "Rat Catcher's Day", a holiday for pest exterminators.