The Pied Piper of Hamelin

In the summer of 1284, so the tale goes, the German town of Hamelin was overrun by rats. A stranger in a coat of many colours arrived and offered, for a fee, to rid the town of the plague. The councillors agreed, and the piper drew a strange tune from his pipe that lured every rat out of the houses and down into the River Weser, where they drowned. But when he came to be paid, the townsfolk refused him. Enraged, the piper returned on Saint John's day while the adults were at church. He played again, and this time it was the children who followed, one hundred and thirty of them, dancing out of the gate and into a hillside that closed behind them, never to be seen again. Only a lame boy who lagged behind survived to tell it. A real entry in the town's records notes the loss of the children, and Hamelin still bars music on one street said to be their last path. Whether plague, migration or disaster hides beneath the story, no one truly knows.