On this day in 1284, the Pied Piper lured the children away from Hamelin, to something better or worse, depending on which legend, poem, play, film, song, scholar or physician you consult. The oldest document for the event is a note in Latin, written 150 years after the fact, although possibly earlier sources include a stained glass window with an inscription describing how there "came a colorful piper to Hamelin and led 130 children away to calverie on the koppen mountain." Perhaps the piper was a Rattenfanger, and perhaps he played a drum, or nothing at all. Perhaps the children were infected by the Plague, and led out to a mass grave; perhaps they were conscripted for the Crusades, or to be settlers; perhaps they had St ... FULL STORY »
