Glorious and rich is the city of Hameln.

On the main square, the towers of the town hall prop up the sky. Even higher, the spiers of the Cathedral of St. Boniface stretch to the sky. In front of the town hall there is a fountain decorated with a stone statue of Roland. The valiant warrior Roland and his famous sword. The bells of Saint Boniface rang. motley crowd floats out of the high lancet doors of the cathedral, spreads along the wide steps. There are 2 rich burghers, one fatter than the other. Gold chains glitter on velvet clothes. Plump fingers studded with rings. Merchants invite, lure buyers. There is a market right on the square. The mountains are piled with food. Salo is whiter than snow. Oil is yellower than the sun. Gold and fat - that's what it is, the glorious, rich city of Hameln! The city is surrounded on all sides by a deep moat, a high wall with towers and turrets. There are guards at every gate. If the purse is empty, there is a patch on the knee, a hole in the elbow, the guards drive from the gate with spears and halberds 3.

Every city is famous for something. Hameln is famous for its wealth, the gilded spiers of its cathedrals. And the Hamelins are famous for their stinginess. They know how, like no one else, to save their reserves, multiply good, take away the last money from the poor.

It's been a dry, lean year. There was famine in the area. And the Hamelins don't care about that. Their barns are full of last year's grain, tables are bent from food. Since autumn, crowds of hungry peasants have been streaming into the city. The cunning merchants decided to hold the grain until spring. By spring, hunger will press the peasant, it will be even more profitable to sell grain. All winter, crowds of hungry people stood at the walls of Hameln, at the closed gates. As soon as the snow melted on the fields, the burgomaster 4 ordered to open all the city gates and let everyone through without hindrance. Merchants stood at the door of the shops, their hands clasped in their belts, their stomachs thrust out, their eyebrows furrowed sternly, so that they would immediately understand: you can’t buy anything cheap here.

But then something unexpected happened. While the weakened people were trudging into the city, rats suddenly poured into Hameln from all around, from hungry villages, from empty fields. It seemed at first: not so great trouble. By order of the burgomaster, drawbridges were raised, all the gates were tightly closed and filled with stones. But the rats swam across the moat and through some passages, holes penetrated into the city. Openly, in broad daylight, rats were walking along the streets. In horror, the inhabitants looked at the terrible procession of rats. Hungry creatures fled to barns, cellars and bins full of selected grain. And the rat feasts began!

The burghers thought hard. Gathered for council in the town hall. Although the burgomaster of Hamelin was pretty fat and clumsy, you can’t say anything - he’s strong in mind. Sometimes the Hamelin people only shrugged their hands: how smart, cunning! And so, on reflection, the burgomaster ordered: in order to save Hameln from an unexpected disaster, to bring cats and cats from all around the city to the city. Carts creak on the roads to Hameln. On the carts hastily knocked together wooden cages. And in the cages are not fattened geese and ducks for sale, but cats and cats. All stripes and breeds, thin, hungry. The carts drove into the square in front of the town hall. The guards opened the cages. Cats ran in all directions, gray, red, black, striped. The burghers sighed with relief and, having calmed down, slowly dispersed to their homes.

But nothing came of this wise idea. The cats were afraid of such a plentiful treat. In fear they fled from the hordes of rats. They hid in all directions, climbed onto the pointed tiled roofs. A thin black cat climbed onto the roof of the Cathedral of St. Boniface and meowed all night long. The next morning an order was posted: to lure cats into the city with affection and fat, and not to let a single one out of the city. But where is it! Three days later, not a single cat was left in Hameln. Well, one thing did not help - you need to come up with another. Do not sit idly by, watching how good, lovingly accumulated, saved, counted so many times, perishes! The ringing of bells floats over Hameln. In all churches there are prayers for the dominance of rats. Monks sell amulets on the porches. Whoever has acquired such an amulet - live in peace: a rat will not come even a hundred steps. But nothing helped: no prayers, no amulets.

In the morning, heralds blow trumpets in the square, summoning the rat king to the court. People flock to the city hall. Merchants come with servants and households, masters with their apprentices. The whole city gathered in front of the town hall. Today is the rat trial. They are waiting for the rat king himself to arrive at the town hall. They say he has fifteen heads and one body. On each head of exquisite workmanship is a golden crown the size of a hazelnut. So many people crowded into the town hall - there is nowhere for an apple to fall. One by one the judges entered and sat under the canopy on gilded chairs. In black velvet robes, in black caps, everyone's faces are important, strict, incorruptible - the rat king and all the rat brethren tremble! The scribes have sharpened their pens. Everyone was waiting. At the slightest sound, even at the rustle of a dropped glove, all heads turned at once. They did not know where the crime king would appear from: from the door, from a dark corner, or from behind the judge's chair. They waited until evening. From the heat and stuffiness, the faces of the judges turned yellow. But the rat king never showed up. Nothing to do. Immediately behind the doors they caught a huge mustachioed rat. They put me in an iron cage, and the cage was placed in the middle of the table. The rat, having darted about, calmed down in submissive anguish. Hunkered into a corner. Chief Justice Caspar Heller rose from his seat. He wiped his sweaty face with a handkerchief. Five granaries with grain were completely plundered by rats, devastated all the cellars. Judge Caspar Geller denounced the rat tribe for a long time in a thunderous voice. Stretching out his hand over the cage with the rat, he listed all the crimes, atrocities and intrigues of the damned rats. After him stood Judge Gangel Moon, who looked like a fat fox, with a long nose and oily eyes. He was the most cunning of all in Hameln. Everything he owned, he kept in chests lined with iron, inaccessible to a rat's tooth. And now he looked at everyone slyly, under sympathy hiding his gloating joy.

Ah, most merciful judges! Gangel Moon said in a sweet and sad voice. - By strictness to the guilty, by mercy to the innocent, the judge should glorify himself. Therefore, we should not forget that rats are also God's creatures, and besides, they are not endowed with a human mind ...

But Chief Justice Caspar Geller cut him short:

Shut up, Judge Gangel Moon! Everyone knows that fleas, rats, toads and snakes are created by the devil.

The judges deliberated for a long time. Finally, Kaspar Heller stood up and announced the verdict in a loud voice:

- “We, by the grace of God's judge of the city of Hameln, are everywhere glorified by our incorruptible honesty and justice. Among all other hardships, which are a great burden on our shoulders, we are also concerned about the atrocities committed in our glorious city of Hameln by vile creatures bearing the ungodly name - Mus rattus rats. We, the judges of the city of Hamelin, find them guilty of violating order and piety, and also of theft and robbery. It is also very regrettable to us that his majesty the rat king, violating our strict order, did not appear at the court, which undoubtedly testifies to his malice, bad conscience and baseness of his soul. Therefore, we order and command: all the rats mentioned, as well as the king of the entire rat tribe, by noon tomorrow, under pain death penalty leave our glorious city, as well as all the lands belonging to it.

Then the rat, having set its tail on fire, was released so that they could convey to their entire family the strict order of the Hamelin court. The rat flashed like black lightning and disappeared. And everyone again, having calmed down, dispersed to their homes. The next day, in the morning, no, no, yes, and residents came up to the windows. They were waiting for the rats to move out of the city. But they just waited in vain. The sun was already setting, and the damned tribe did not even think of carrying out the judgment. And then suddenly the terrible news broke! Unheard of business! On the night of the trial, the rats ate the judge's robe and cap in addition to the chief judge Kaspar Geller. From such impudence all only opened their mouths. The fat is in the fire! And in fact, rats in Hameln kept coming and coming. At night, candles flickered in many windows. One candle burns out - from the cinder they lit another, and so on until morning. The burghers sat on high down jackets, not daring to put their feet out of bed. No longer afraid of anyone, rats darted everywhere. Attracted by the aroma of the roast, they made their way to the kitchens. They looked out of the corners, moving their noses, sniffing: “What does it smell like here?” They jumped on the tables, strove to steal the best piece right from the dishes. They even got to the hams and sausages suspended from the ceiling. Whatever you miss - they ate it all, damned. And hunger has already knocked on the doors of many houses with a bony finger. And then the burgomaster had such a dream: as if the rats had been kicked out of the houses of the former owners. He, the venerable burgomaster of the city of Hameln, wanders with a beggarly bag. Behind him is his wife and children. Timidly knocked on the door of his house. The door swung open - on the threshold of a rat in the growth of a man. On the chest is a golden burgomaster's chain. She waved her paw - other rats in helmets, with halberds, attacked them: “Get out of here! Beggars! Hungry!". The next morning the burgomaster gathered all the councilors in the town hall and told his dream. The burghers looked at each other anxiously: “Oh, this is not good!” Although there were burghers one meaner than the other, but then they decided: to regret nothing, if only to save the city from a terrible misfortune. Heralds passed through all the streets of Hamelin. They walked, breaking the system and order, huddled together, closer to each other. The city is dead. In the deserted squares, on the deserted streets, on the bridges, in complete silence, trumpets and the voices of heralds sounded strangely and ominously:

Whoever rids the glorious city of Hameln of rats will receive as much gold from the magistrate as he can carry! But three days passed, and no one came to the town hall. On the fourth day, the bell again gathered all the burghers to the town hall. The burgomaster shook his sleeves for a long time, picked up the edges of his cloak - did a rat get in? The burghers are haggard, pale, there are black circles under their eyes. Where did the blush and thick cheeks go? If the promised reward does not help, it is clear that there is nowhere else to wait for salvation. Unable to bear it, the burgomaster covered his face with his hands and sobbed muffledly. Everything, the end! Good old Hameln is dying! And suddenly everyone heard some voices, noise and movement below, in the square. A guard ran into the hall and shouted:

Pied Piper!

A strange man limped in through the door. The stranger was tall and thin. His face is dark, as if they had smoked it well over the fire. The look is piercing. That look sent chills down her spine. On the shoulders is a short coat. One half of the camisole is black as night, the other is red as fire. A cock feather is stuck into the black cap on the side. In his hand, the stranger held an old pipe, darkened with time. At another time, of course, cautious burghers would have been wary of such a strange guest: they did not trust skinny vagabonds. But now everyone was delighted with him, as the most welcome guest. The burgomaster, calling him "my dear sir," himself moved a chair to him. Judge Kaspar Heller even tried to slap him on the shoulder. But then, with a loud cry, he jerked his hand away - the palm seemed to be burned by fire.

Servants went down to the cellars and brought bottles of Malvasia, Rhenish and Moselle. The stranger grabbed a bottle of malvasia, pulled out the wax stopper with his teeth and, throwing back his head, drank the precious wine in one gulp. Without stopping, he emptied nine bottles in a row.

And the burgomaster, no longer able to contain his impatience, asked the stranger bluntly:

Tell me, can you get the rat tribe out of our city?

I can, - the rat-catcher chuckled. These creatures are under my control.

How? Every single one?.. - The burgomaster even got up from his seat.

I will rid your city of rats. My word, rat-catcher, is strong. But you keep yours. For this, give me as much gold as I can carry.

Hood as a pole and chrome to boot. Such a lot will not take away ... - the burgomaster whispered to the judge Kaspar Geller. And then, turning to the rat-catcher, he said loudly and importantly: - Everything is as agreed, our honored guest. There will be no cheating.

So look, do not try to break your word, - said the rat-catcher and left the town hall.

The sky suddenly became gray and gloomy. Everything was shrouded in mist. The ravens that clung to the spiers of the Cathedral of St. Boniface rose, swirled, strewn the whole sky with an ominous cawing. The Pied Piper raised a pipe to his lips. Long-drawn-out sounds poured from the pipe. The tickling rustle of grain was heard in these sounds, a trickle flowing from a hole in the bag. Cheerful clicking of oil in a frying pan. The crunch of crackers under sharp teeth. The burghers standing at the windows gasped and involuntarily leaned back. Because at the sound of the pipe, rats began to run out of all the houses. They crawled out of basements, jumped from attics. The rats surrounded the rat-catcher from all sides. And he indifferently went, limping, from the square. And every single rat ran after him. As soon as the pipe fell silent, the whole countless rat horde stopped. But the pipe began to sing again. And again the rats obediently rushed after the rat catcher. The rat-catcher went from street to street. There were more and more rats.

Following the rat catcher, all the rats moved to the city gates. The guards barely had time to hide in the towers. The rats left the city and stretched out along the road like a black ribbon. The last, stragglers, ran across the drawbridge - and in pursuit of the rat catcher. Everything was covered in dust. Several times flashed the black cloak of a pied-catcher, a hand with a pipe, a cock's feather ...

Moving away, the horn sounded quieter and quieter. An hour later, shepherds ran into the city. Interrupting each other, they said:

The rat-catcher came to the bank of the river Weser. He jumped into the boat, which swayed right there near the shore. Without ceasing to play the pipe, the rat-catcher floated out into the middle of the Weser. The rats jumped into the water and swam after him, and they swam until they were all drowned. And there were so many of them that the mighty Weser came out of the banks.

The city liberated from rats rejoices. Bells ring joyfully in all cathedrals. Citizens are walking in the streets in merry crowds. Glorious Hamelin saved! Rich Hamelin saved! At the town hall, servants pour wine into silver goblets. Now it's not a sin to drink. Suddenly, a rat-catcher appeared from around the corner and went across the square straight to the town hall. He also had a pipe in his hand. Only he was dressed differently: in a green suit of a hunter. The burghers looked at each other. To pay? Eh no...

This pied-catcher is wiry and strong, - the burgomaster whispered to the judge Kaspar Geller, - although he is chrome, he will carry away the entire treasury ...

The rat-catcher entered the town hall. Nobody even looked in his direction. The burgomaster turned away, Kaspar Heller stared out the window. But, apparently, the rat-catcher was not so easily embarrassed. With a grin, he pulled out a sack from his bosom. This bag seemed bottomless to the burghers.

I kept my word. Now it's up to you, - said the rat-catcher. - As agreed. As much gold as I can carry...

Dearest ... - The burgomaster spread his hands in confusion, looked back at Gangel Mun.

Here's how? Not a purse, not a bag - a whole bag of gold? .. - Judge Gangel Moon giggled and bulged his eyes in feigned fright.

The cunning Gangel Moon, squinting warily at the rat-catcher, leaned towards the burgomaster's ear:

Maybe give him a handful of gold? So ... a little, for the sake of appearances ... And then tax the poorer people, who did not suffer from rats at all, because they did not own anything anyway.

But the burgomaster waved him off. He cleared his throat and in an important but paternally affectionate voice said:

It is done. It is necessary, as promised, to pay off. For labor and pay. A purse of silver and exit from the city through any gate.

And the stranger immediately showed himself to be completely ignorant. He did not take his purse and, without even bowing, turned his back and left the hall. It left behind a faint cloud of sulfur smoke.

This is where the burghers really cheered up. It turned out nicely: they got rid of both the rats and the rat-catcher at once. The bells of St. Boniface are ringing loudly. All the burghers with their wives and servants went to the cathedral for Sunday mass. And none of them hears that the pipe sang again in the square.

"Can! Can! Can! - the pipe sings. - Everything is possible today! I will lead you to the green groves! To honey flood meadows! Barefoot in the puddles! Burrow in the hay! Can! Can! Can!"

The clatter of little shoes on wooden stairs, on stone steps...

Children run out of every door. Throwing the game, throwing the spinning wheel, pulling up the stocking on the run, the children run after the rat catcher, greedily catching the sounds of the pipe. Every home has children. There are children on every street. They fall, break their knees, rub, blow and run on. Cheerful, with sticky fingers, sweetness behind the cheek, a handful of nuts in the fist - children, the treasure of Hamelin.

Here is the city gate. The children trotted across the drawbridge. And the rat-catcher leads them along the road, past the heather hills, further and further ...

edited news LAKRIMOzzzA - 11-02-2011, 00:57

This is his song, - said the girl. - If it is played correctly, it takes away forever. But you can play it correctly only on his pipe ... Or, maybe, with a large orchestra. Maybe. If you gather virtuosos from all over the world, so that there are several thousand of them ... Then, probably, it will work out. Maybe. Understand?

Marina and Sergey Dyachenko "Alena and Aspirin"

Do you remember the story of the musician with the magic flute, who led Hameln out of the city and drowned all the rats, and then, when the stingy townspeople did not pay him for the service, took their children who knows where? In childhood, each of us read or heard it. And everyone must have wondered: who was this strange rat-catcher? What flute does he have? Where did he take the kids? Are they all really dead? Historians and science fiction writers vied with each other to offer their answers.

The legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin is one of those that are not lost in the mists of time, in the fabulous “a long time ago, in a distant kingdom”, but, on the contrary, have a clearly marked time and place of action. This is a legend, very convincingly claiming to be true. So, what actually happened in the German city of Hameln on June 26, 1284?

How do we know this?

Interestingly, initially there were no rats in this whole story. The earliest version of the legend is stated in the chronicles of the city of Hameln for 1375 in several lines:

“In 1284, on the day of John and Paul, which was on the 26th day of the month of June, a flutist dressed in colorful clothes led one hundred and thirty children born in Hameln out of the city to Koppen near Kalvaria, where they disappeared.”

This event (assuming that it was in reality) shocked the Hamelians so much that for some time they even counted time from this date - "from the departure of our children." Earlier - around 1300 - a flutist, followed by children, was depicted on the stained glass window of the city church Marketkirche ("market church"), unfortunately not preserved, but known from descriptions and sketches.

Sketch from the 13th century depicting a stained-glass window with a Pied Piper

At the beginning of the 20th century in Hameln, during the repair of the city hall, built in 1603 on the site of earlier houses, an ancient wooden beam was found with an inscription in the old dialect:

“In the year 1284, on the Day of John and Paul on June 26, there was a Whistler in colorful clothes, who 130 children born in Hameln were taken away and lost in grief.”

Now this inscription adorns the facade of the house, which houses a hotel and a restaurant. And on Bungelosenstrasse (“street of silence”), where the building stands, it is forbidden by law to play any music and dance - according to legend, it was along this street that the Flutist took the kids away.

The old town hall, known as the "Pied Piper's House", and the corner of the "silent street"

History wandered from one historical chronicle to another, gradually acquiring details. Around the beginning of the 1560s, in the chronicle of the Württemberg counts von Zimmern, full version legend as it has come down to us. True, the exact date of the event is not given this time, only an approximate one: "several hundred years ago."

And it was like that. Rich Hameln was overcome by an invasion of rats, with which the townspeople could not cope. And then, at the right time, a certain wandering schoolboy appeared, who promised to save the city from misfortune for a huge sum of several hundred guilders at that time. With the help of a magic flute, the musician led the rats to one of the nearest mountains, where he locked them up forever. And when the city magistrate backed down and refused to pay the promised amount, the flutist did the same with the city children.

Tellingly, in those years when the chronicle was created, Hamelin was really rich and famous. So envious neighbors could have supplemented the legend by portraying the disappearance of children as a fair punishment for greed, and not as an unexpected misfortune, as the Hamelins believed this story.

City of Hameln

The small cozy town of Hameln (Hameln) is located in the east of Westphalia, on the Weser River, and is the capital of the Hameln-Pyrmont region. It was founded around 851 - it was then that the monastery was first mentioned in the chronicles, near the walls of which a village grew up, which by the 12th century had turned into a quite decent city. He became rich thanks to the trade in bread - the surrounding fields were very productive. Since 1277 - a free city. In the XV-XVI centuries, Hameln was a member of the Hanseatic League - an influential alliance of the trading cities of Northern Europe.

During Thirty Years' War, in 1634, the city was besieged by Swedish troops. The rulers learned a lesson from this story: just a century later, Hameln became the most fortified locality Kingdom of Hanover - it was surrounded by four powerful fortresses, and it was not easy to approach the city. Nevertheless, the city surrendered to Napoleon's troops in 1808 without a fight. In 1864, Hameln became part of the Kingdom of Prussia, and remained so until 1871, when the German Empire was created.

Nowadays, the piper is no longer the scourge of Hamelin, but his main source income that attracts tourists

Now the population of the town is about 58 thousand people. The main source of income for its inhabitants is tourism. In addition to places associated with the Pied Piper of Hamelin, the Klutturm observation tower, built in 1843, is worthy of attention. It offers a magnificent view of Old city. Another notable place is the hotel, converted from the city prison, in which during the Second World War the Nazis executed enemies of the regime, and the British troops subsequently executed Nazi war criminals.

At the beginning of the 17th century, the Pied Piper appears in The Rebirth of a Faded Mind, a historical work by the Dutch-born Englishman Richard Rawlans. Outlining the legend, the author adds a different ending to it: as if the children taken away by the Colorful Flute Player went through a mountain tunnel to Transylvania, where they remained to live. From the point of view of geography, such an outcome, of course, is completely unbelievable. Rolance gives a different date for the event, almost a hundred years later than the Hamelin version: July 22, 1376.

Rolance borrowed the legend from his compatriots Robert Burton (in Anatomy of Melancholy, 1621), William Ramsey and Nathaniel Wanley. Moreover, the first one explains this story by the intrigue of dark forces, and calls the unknown musician "the devil in the guise of a colorful flutist." And he again gets confused in the dates, this time naming June 20, 1484.

Title pages of the three-volume "Magic Horn of the Boy". Many of these songs are still sung in Germany today.

The old legend gained real popularity relatively recently - at the beginning of the 19th century. In 1806, the first volume of the anthology of folk German poetry, The Magic Horn of a Boy, was published by the romantic poets Ludwig Joachim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano. Among other folklore ballads, there is also the song "Pied Piper from Hamelin". She is openly edifying, her last lines: "Human greed - here it is, the poison that killed the Hamelin guys." It was this version of the legend that became the textbook.

We know the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin mainly not from this ballad, but from the fairy tale of the Brothers Grimm. They, too, were not immune to the temptation to deduce a moral from the story. The flutist, according to the storytellers, was the Devil himself, but the children managed to avoid his obsession and stay alive, founding new town in Transylvania.

Rats and Pied Piper

Rats were a real disaster in the Middle Ages and even in modern times. They multiplied so quickly that they were able to gobble up grain in the barns of an entire city in a matter of days. In addition, rat fleas carried the plague - this was not known until late XIX century when the plague bacillus was discovered. The situation was aggravated by the fact that the Europeans massively exterminated cats, which were considered devilish offspring, and there was no one to fight tailed pests.

Meanwhile, the most insane methods of struggle were used, up to burning the city along with rodents. And in the Burgundian city of Autun, where at the beginning of the 16th century rodents destroyed all the bread, rats were even summoned to court by specially drafted subpoenas and waited for a long time in the town hall when the Rat King himself would appear before the eyes of the judges and the people. When he impudently ignored the hearings, the rats were ordered to get out of the Burgundian lands. Do I need to say that they ignored this order as well?

“We choked them, choked them!” Pied Piper demonstrates the latest rodent trap to the townspeople. Early 17th century drawing

Against the backdrop of such a disastrous state in the barns and minds of the venerable burghers, the profession of rat-catcher became popular, although little respected. At the court of the English king Jacob I (1603-1625), the court rat-catcher was on the staff of the Royal Chamber. But few people managed to get such a bread post. Most of the rat-catchers were itinerant artisans. They went from city to city, carrying bundles of rat corpses, rodent-trapping devices and powerful poisons, and touted their method of getting rid of pests in the streets and squares. If the method of this or that specialist seemed effective to the townspeople, they entered into an agreement with him to exterminate rats in a separate house or in the whole city. Interestingly, many rat catchers actually used musical instruments - it was believed that the right melodies enchant rats

Our mysterious Pied Piper is not alone: ​​in the mythology and folklore of different nations, musicians with the ability to enchant all living things are given considerable attention. Sirens, who seduced the ancient Greek sailors with their songs, but pierced on the Argonauts and the Odyssey, are the same berry with the Colorful Flutist. Obviously, Orpheus is closely related to him, before whose art all nature bowed, not excluding wild animals, and the hero of the Kalevala, the musician Väinämöinen.

It is impossible not to recall that magical properties in folklore were attributed to the music and singing of the "little people" - fairies and elves. According to legend, the one who heard this singing will either die soon or leave his home and look for a magical land, not knowing peace until the end of his days. And the elves were very fond of kidnapping small children - they, however, did not have such love for rats.

A modern version of the stained-glass window with the Pied Piper

But the pedigree of the Pied Piper dates back much higher - to the gods themselves. According to the beliefs of the ancient Germans, the souls of the dead take the form of mice and rats, gathering at the call of the god of Death - it was his role that went to the Flutist. And Apollo, the divine (in every sense of the word) musician, among his other epithets, had one like Smintheus (“mouse” or “mice exterminator”), because he saved many Greek regions from the invasion of voles.

Legends strikingly similar to the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin are found in Europe. The French talk about a certain monk who, in retaliation for deceiving a magistrate, took away not children, but pets. There is a tale in Ireland about a bagpiper who led the boys and girls out of the city, who knows where. On the English Isle of Wight, the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin is repeated literally word for word - with the slight difference that the musician leads the children not uphill, but into the forest. And in Germany itself, several cities at once claim to be considered the birthplace of a magician with a flute, who is called either a hermit monk or a sorcerer.

A legend told in the Austrian city of Korneuburg gives the later date of the event - 1646 - and also the name of the mysterious Piper: Hans the Mousehole. By birth, he, in his own words, was from Vienna, where he held the position of city rat-catcher. The story of the abduction of children here ends prosaically: the flutist leads them to a ship on the Danube, which takes away "human goods" to the slave markets of Constantinople.

So what was it?

A lot has been devoted to the search for the real background of the legend of the Pied Piper scientific works. Most of the versions look quite convincing and are supported by facts - with the exception of the very delusional ones, such as the abduction of children by aliens or the attacks of a pedophile maniac. But there are also many objections to them. We can say that today the secret of the Pied Piper is still not disclosed.

Children's crusade?

One of the most popular theories says that the departed children actually followed the infamous Children's Crusade in 1212. Thousands of children and teenagers in Germany and France were captivated by the speeches of the little prophets - the German Nicholas and the Frenchman Etienne. The latter argued that God does not give Jerusalem into the hands of adults, since they are mired in sin, and only innocent children are able to conquer the Holy Sepulcher.

It is now believed that the bulk of the pilgrims were not small children, but teenagers and young men.

Adults also joined the children, at the time of the greatest rise of pilgrims there were 25 thousand. Their fate was sad: many died on the road from disease and hunger, those who were able to reach Italy, from where it was supposed to cross to Jerusalem by sea, were sold into slavery in the slave markets of Tunisia. Some managed to board the ships in Genoa, but they were immediately flooded. None of the children returned home.

This version has two alarming moments. Firstly, there was a lot of time left before the year 1284 indicated in the Hamelin chronicles - the children's crusade remained in the people's memory as a completely separate phenomenon. Secondly, in such a story there is absolutely no place for the Colorful Flutist: it is unlikely that the boy prophets or their henchmen wore multi-colored robes.

Plague?

Another theory of the origin of the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin is no less sinister. It recalls the plague epidemics that devastated entire cities in the Middle Ages. In colorful clothes, the artists dressed the skeleton, symbolizing the dance of Death, sometimes this terrible dancer also took on the appearance of a musician with a flute, accompanying himself and those who dance with him.

The symbolism of the Flutist as the god of death and mice as the souls of the dead fit perfectly into this theory. And the hills, over which the musician leads the children, can also symbolize the border between our world and the afterlife. In addition, it is rats that are the main carriers of the plague - however, they did not know about this in the Middle Ages.

Death accompanies the terrible dances on the pipe

Everything seems to be logical, but in the 13th century, to which the action of the legend supposedly refers, there were no major plague epidemics in Germany. It became a real disaster more than half a century later - in 1349, and at that time there was already a stained-glass window in the Marketkirche.

Associated with this version is the theory of another contagious disease - dance of St. Vitus. It may have a viral origin, but many researchers believe that in such attacks people splashed out the horror accumulated during the plague epidemics. Sick of this severe defeat nervous system they could jump and twitch for hours in a strange semblance of a dance, only to eventually collapse in exhaustion. There is a known case when in the German city of Erfurt, several hundred children were obsessed with this crazy dance, who in the dance managed to reach the neighboring city, where they fell. Many of them died, others, even returning home safely, lived their whole lives with the consequences of the disease - trembling limbs and unsteady gait.

Great Migration?

The Pied Piper gave the artists an inexhaustible theme for caricatures...

The theory is very popular at present, according to which those who left the city simply went to settle in new lands, including Poland, Moravia and Transylvania, devastated by the Mongol invasion. The Germans also actively moved to the Baltic states, in which it was necessary to weaken the Slavic influence. Emigration was not very popular among the townspeople tied to their native places, so the seniors hired special recruiters who persuaded the residents to pack their things and go in search of a better life in the east. Recruiters dressed in flashy, bright clothes and carried drums and flutes with them to attract the attention of the people.

In this case, the children from the legend disappear, and there is an easy-going youth, including young families. Indirect confirmation of this version can also be found in a drawing that copied a stained-glass window in the Marketkirche: three deer are depicted in the clearing between the Flutist and the children - the coat of arms of the von Spiegelbergs, local nobles who actively participated in the colonization of eastern lands. And in modern Poland there are people with the surnames Gamelin, Hamel and Gamelinkov, and simply with typical Saxon surnames.

The version is definitely elegant. However, it is completely incomprehensible why the Hamelins needed to transform the prosaic story of emigration into mystical legend. This event is clearly not one of those that needed to be encrypted.

Holiday disaster?

And even propaganda posters for healthy lifestyle life

Among the versions of the legend about the Pied Piper, there is this one: supposedly one or two children fell behind the general procession and saw how the mountain swallowed up those who had gone ahead. It was they who conveyed this story to the Hamelins. Apparently, those who told the legend at one fine moment realized that an event cannot be considered true if all its possible witnesses have disappeared.

Based on this version, the German researcher Waltraut Wöller suggested that a mountain landslide became the cause of the death of the children, and the opened mountain was only imagined from afar. Fifteen kilometers from the city, indeed, a suitable mountain was found, next to which there is a gorge in which it is easy to become a victim of a rockfall, and a swampy bog where unfortunate children, led by a musician, could drown.

Where did they all go? Perhaps to the venue of the celebration in honor of the summer solstice - hence the need for a flutist. One inconsistency: the solstice is still celebrated a few days earlier than the date indicated in the chronicles ...

Battle of Sedemund?

Some researchers are trying to trace the legend of the Pied Piper to the minor battle of Sedemund (1259), in which the Hamelin militia opposed the troops of the Bishop of Minden (Minden is a town in Westphalia) in a dispute over some land ownership. The Hamelins lost the battle, many of them were captured - it is these “children of Hamelin” (that is, the natives of the city) who commemorate the lines in the chronicle and the inscription on the board. By the way, the prisoners, according to the chronicles, were taken away from the battlefield through the mountains, and could only return home through Transylvania.

True, it is not clear why the compilers of the chronicle attributed a different date to this event, why they indicated a different number of prisoners (there were 30, not 130), and also - where did the Motley Flutist come from in this case? In a word, with any version, there are more questions than answers ...

The motley flutist in fiction

The most interesting thing about the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin is its ambiguity. It is difficult to understand who is the main villain in this story: the Flutist or the greedy townspeople who have lost their children. And who is this man with a pipe - a clever adventurer or a magician, the Devil himself or a brilliant hypnotist musician? What is this story about - is it only about the fact that being greedy and deceiving is not good, or is it also about the power of art that can serve both for the benefit of people and for harm? The widest scope for interpretation opens up - that's why the legend is still so popular among writers. It is no coincidence that the image of the Pied Piper often becomes a symbol: for example, Nevil Shute's quite realistic novel "The Pied Piper" tells about an elderly Englishman who rescues children from occupied France during World War II.

For most of us, the story of the Pied Flutist is more likely known not from the fairy tale of the Brothers Grimm, but from Selma Lagerlöf's Wonderful Journey with the Wild Geese and the Soviet cartoon of the same name. This is a fairy tale, which means that no explanation is required for the miracle: if Niels finds that same magic pipe, then the rats will certainly obey him. The focus, it turns out, is in the magical object, not in the musician.

Nils acting as a rat catcher

Adult literature has adult problems as well. In Bertolt Brecht's play The True Story of the Pied Piper from Hammeln, the ending of the legend is completely different: the lost Pied Piper returns to the city with his children, and he is sentenced to be hanged. Marina Tsvetaeva in the poem "The Pied Piper" (1925) denounces the well-fed philistinism, deaf to real art, and presents the legend as a story of just revenge - but not for greed, but for stupidity and spiritual emptiness. But the Pied Piper in her interpretation is not an angel of retribution, but a dangerous dictator, carrying him to certain death with sweet speeches, a harbinger of sinister tyrannies of the 20th century. Alexander Grin in the story "The Pied Piper" also talks about the danger of totalitarianism, but his main fear is not the Pied Piper, but the rodents themselves, turning into people and seizing power.

Fantasists, of course, cannot resist the temptation to spread Hameln over the entire planet. Harlan Ellison in the story "The Emissary from Hammeln" tells about a boy named Willy, a descendant of the Pied Piper, who played the pipe and forced all the cockroaches to leave the city. However, people did not pollute the Earth less - and then he removed all adult people from the planet, leaving it to children.

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky in the story "The Beetle in the Anthill" feature a planet that the entire adult population has abandoned, leaving children - they are also trying to lure somewhere strange humanoid creatures in colorful clothes.

In Andre Norton's novel "The Grim Piper" (in another translation - "Dark Trumpeter") main character, identified with the Flutist, again acts as a benefactor: he helps a handful of children of a colonized planet avoid the death that has befallen almost all other mankind.

And in Olga Rodionova's book "My Angel Pied Piper", a mysterious wanderer with a flute fights with "brats" - mutant children with unusual abilities.

Terry Pratchett in the children's story "The Amazing Maurice and His Learned Rodents" starts from one simple fact - rats are excellent swimmers, so the Pied Flutist could not drown them. The story is reminiscent of the good old fairy tale film "Heart of the Dragon": intelligent rats unite with the Pied Piper - a boy, staging an invasion of the city and their subsequent removal with the help of a "magic" pipe. And in the "Autumn Fox" by Dmitry Skyryuk, the protagonist of the cycle involuntarily becomes the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

In Marina and Sergey Dyachenko's story "The Burning Tower" and its indirect continuation, the novel "Alena and Aspirin", the Flutist is never named, but the reader has the opportunity to guess that it is he. Here he is an inhuman being, a kind of supreme judge and an embodied moral law that puts people before the most difficult choices. The girl Alena is one of the children whom the Pied Piper once took to a bright world full of joy and happiness - but her brother fled to Earth, and the girl followed him ...

The ominous appearance of the Pied Piper in our fairy-tale time is much more popular than his bright side. In Garth Nix, in the children's cycle "Keys to the Kingdom", the Piper, who kidnaps children, is the opponent of the protagonist, a boy named Arthur, and one of the girls taken away by him becomes Arthur's companion. And China Mieville in the novel "The Rat King" is especially merciless to the Pied Piper: here he is a cruel megalomaniac, a "blond beast" with a thirst for unlimited power, which his music gives him.

The Pied Flautist has appeared countless times in songs - he was mentioned in the lyrics of ABBA, Jethro Tull and Megadeth, Queen and Rammstein, In Extremo and Led Zeppelin.

But there are not so many incarnations on the silver screen, especially original interpretations. Among the notable moments: in one of the screen adaptations of the fairy tale (“Motley Flutist” in 1972), he was played by folk musician Donovan, and the Pied Piper also appears in the Disney cartoon “Fantasy” and in “Shrek”. Finally, in one of the episodes of the old television series "Batman", the main character parodies the Pied Piper, luring a crowd of mechanical rodents into the river.

The Japanese, with their habit of dragging everything that is badly lying into anime and manga, also could not get past the Pied Piper of Hamelin. The artist Asada Torao depicted a very cruel and bloody, a la "Battle Royale" story based on the legend: in his manga "Pied Piper" he describes a world in which gangs of schoolchildren run amok, and adults cannot do anything with them - after all, minors cannot be judged to the fullest extent of the law. But with their peers, teenagers are easily dealt with, who were once the same criminals, and then created Patrol 357, which fights against children's gangs. Meanwhile, it becomes clear that someone is zombifying schoolchildren by sending them orders to kill. Who could be the mysterious intruder, if not the legendary Hamelin flutist?

But the anime Hameln no Violin Hiki has nothing to do with the plot of the legend. The only thing the protagonist has in common with the Motley Flutist is that he knows how to play music on the violin that subjugates demons. In all other respects, this is a fairly standard fantasy, except that many of the characters in it are named after musical instruments (Flute, Trombone, Piano, Clarinet).

Hamelin violinist, oddly enough

* * *

It looks like we have a long time to follow the pipe of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Its melody calls and beckons, promising miracles, but instead it only confuses more and more. The legend of the Motley Flutist is alive insofar as it intrigues, forcing one to seek and find new interpretations of it. In this sense, we can say that the Pied Piper fulfilled his mission, clearly and convincingly demonstrating to us the power of art, with the magic of which it is impossible to argue.

Legend of the Pied Piper

The legend of the rat-catcher in its most famous version reads as follows:
Once the city of Hamelin was flooded by a rat invasion. No tricks
helped to get rid of rodents, impudent every day up to
that they themselves began to attack cats and dogs, as well as bite babies in
cradles. Desperate magistrate announces reward for anyone who helps
rid the city of rats. At the same time, a "colorful flutist" appeared in Hameln
(or, as it is sometimes translated, "the motley piper"). It is not known who he was
actually and where it came from. Obliging the magistrate to pay him
as a reward "as much gold as he can carry", he
took out a magic flute from his pocket, to the sounds of which all city rats
fled to him, he led the bewitched animals away from the city and
drowned them all in the river Weser.

The magistrate, however, had time to regret his hasty promise, and
when the flutist returned for the award, he flatly refused. The same, holding
anger, after some time he returned to the city already in a hunter's suit and
red hat and again played the magic flute, but this time to him
all the children of the city fled, while the bewitched adults did not
could interfere with it. Just like earlier rats, the flutist brought them out of
cities - and drowned in the river (or took him away to some mountain gorge on
Mount Koppen, where everyone disappeared).

Even later, this last version was redone: impure,
pretending to be a rat catcher, failed to kill innocent children, and having crossed
over the mountains, they settled somewhere in Transylvania, in the current
Romania.

Probably, a little later, it was added to the legend that from the general
two boys lagged behind the procession - tired of the long journey, they trudged
behind the procession and therefore managed to stay alive. Later, allegedly
one of them was blind, the other was dumb.

Another version of the legend tells about one straggler - lame
a child who managed to return to the city and tell about what happened.
It was this variant that he later laid at the basis of his poem about the Pied Piper.
Robert Browning.

The third option says that there were three stragglers: a blind
a boy who got lost along the way, led by a deaf man who could not hear
music and therefore escaped witchcraft, and, finally, the third, jumping out of
half-dressed at home, who, then ashamed of his own appearance, returned and
that's why he stayed alive

In the Middle Ages, many wealthy cities in Europe suffered from rats that lived not only in garbage dumps, but penetrated into barns, cellars where food was stored, climbed into the dwellings of citizens. In conditions of unsanitary conditions, they quickly multiplied, neither cats, nor cunning mousetraps, nor toxic substances could destroy them. Rats are cunning creatures, quickly adapting to changing environments. It was believed that only a person with a magical gift could cope with them.

The wealthy city of Hameln, located on the Weser River, not far from Hanover, did not escape the hard fate of the invasion: in the summer of 1284, the inhabitants discovered that a myriad of rats suddenly appeared in the city. It was as if someone had brought them to Hameln. They were not afraid of anyone, neither people, nor horses, nor dogs, nor cats. Residents tried to fight them, but nothing helped - the number of rats only increased. And the burgomaster seriously began to think about whether the inhabitants should leave the city in which the rats had destroyed all the food supplies.

At this tragic moment, a limping man in red trousers, with a red cape and a red hat on his head appeared in Hameln. He had a flute tucked into his belt. He looked like a wandering musician. At the city gates, he was asked about the purpose of the visit, he replied that he would like to help the inhabitants cope with the disaster that had befallen them. He was shown the way to the town hall.

The burgomaster and the inhabitants, having learned about his desire to rid the city of rats, said that if the musician manages to do this, then he will receive as a reward as much gold as he can carry. The young man agreed. He went out into the square, where people had already gathered who had heard about him, pulled out his flute from his belt and began to play. Suddenly, rats began to appear from the basements and attics. They filled the area. People looked at them in horror, but the rats paid no attention to anyone. The young man played the flute and moved along the main street towards the exit from the city, the rats followed him. All to one.

Residents could not believe their eyes - the streets were empty. The rats have left the city. And the young man reached the Weser River, jumped into the boat and swam away, without ceasing to play. The rats followed him into the water. All to one.

After a while the young man returned to the city. Residents ran through the streets shouting their delight. They were ready to wear young man on hands. But he went to the burgomaster and reminded him of his promise. The burgomaster went out into the square and, in front of everyone, said that he did not believe that the young man could so easily rid Hameln of rats. And just in case, I handed him some coins.

“And this is the promised payment?” the young man was surprised.
He did not take the money, and the burgomaster did not talk to him and pointed to the way out of the city.

“Well, you keep your promises,” the young man said to the inhabitants gathered in the square. “For ingratitude, I will repay you with the same coin.

He pulled his flute from his belt again and began to play. And immediately children began running to him from all the streets. The young man went down the main street from the city, and the children followed him. Soon the rat-catcher and the children following him were out of sight.

The inhabitants did not dare to rush after them. They all seemed to be bewitched. The children never returned to Hameln.

_____________________________________________________

The legend of the Pied Piper hangs somewhere between a fairy tale, a myth and an entertaining short story. Despite its anecdotal nature, this is a legend, and not just an out of the ordinary case; She wants to be explained and understood.

Who is the Pied Piper? Where does his power over animals and children come from? How does it work: hypnosis, art? The legend is open to interpretation, it begs for interpretation.

The legend is symbolic and raises eternal questions: about the power of one person over many, about good that turns into evil, about a miracle and about responsibility for one's promises.

The inscription on the old town hall reminds of a distant and sad event: “In 1284, the magic rat-catcher lured 130 children out of Hameln. They all died in the dungeon."

The legend of the rat-catcher, supposedly originating in the 13th century, is one of the varieties of stories about a mysterious musician who leads bewitched people or cattle away. Such legends in the Middle Ages were very widespread, despite the fact that the Hamelin version is the only one where the exact date of the event is called June 26, 1284, and the memory of which was reflected in the chronicles of that time along with completely genuine events. All this taken together leads researchers to believe that some real events were behind the legend of the rat-catcher, which over time took on the form folk tale. In later sources, especially foreign ones, for some unknown reason, the date is replaced by another one - June 20, 1484 or July 22, 1376.

Hameln lies on the banks of the Weser River in Lower Saxony and is currently the capital of the district of Hameln-Pyrmont. Hamelin made a fortune trading in bread, which was grown in the surrounding fields; this was reflected even in the oldest city coat of arms, which depicted millstones. From 1277, that is, a year before the time indicated by the legend, it turned into a free city.

It is necessary to report a completely unusual incident that happened in the town of Hameln, in the diocese of Mindener, in the year of the Lord 1284, on the day of Saints John and Paul. A certain fellow of about 30 years old, beautifully dressed, so that those who saw him admired him, crossed the bridge over the Weser and entered the city gates. He had a strange-looking silver pipe and began to whistle all over the city. And all the children, hearing that pipe, about 130 in number, followed him out of the city, went away and disappeared, so that no one could later find out if even one of them had survived. Mothers wandered from city to city and did not find anyone. Sometimes their voices were heard, and each mother recognized the voice of her child. Then the voices sounded already in Hameln, after the first, second and third anniversaries of the departure and disappearance of the children. I read about it in an old book. And the mother of Mr. Dean Johann von Lude herself saw how the children were taken away.

It is believed that it was the envy of the neighbors towards the wealthy merchant Hameln that largely determined the change in the original legend, so that the motive of deception was added to it, which the hero was subjected to by local elders.

This legend was so popular in creative circles that the plot inspired it in different time celebrities such as Heinrich Heine and Prosper Merimee, Robert Browning (the poem "The Flutist from Hamelin") and Valery Bryusov. In this list we will also meet Goethe, who dedicated a great ballad to the protagonist of our story.

In the Middle Ages, an oral tradition developed in Saxony that tells how Hameln became the object of attack by hordes of voracious rats. The local magistrate was at a loss; the residents panicked. But a certain flutist unexpectedly came to the aid of the townspeople. With the help of his instrument, he lured the rats out of the city gates and, bewitching with magical music, forced one after another to plunge into the waters of the Weser River. In short, drown yourself. Residents breathed a sigh of relief, but the story, as you know, did not end there. The greedy city fathers refused to pay the promised flutist. Then he, leaving Hamelin, played again in anger. However, now it was no longer rodents that followed him, but the children of ungrateful citizens. And no one could stop them or the musician-wizard. The children were never seen again.

Such is the legend. But is it a legend? Already in a number of medieval documents, evidence is found that the legend of the Pied Piper is most likely not fiction, but real. historical event. Of the early works, one can mention the work "The Death of the Children of Hamelin" by Johann Pomarius, referring to XIV century. But the urban chronicle is more interesting. The passage quoted below is today the most reliable part of the tradition.
“In 1284, on the day of John and Paul, which was on the 26th day of the month of June, a flutist dressed in colorful veils led one hundred and thirty children born in Hameln out of the city to Koplen, near Calvary, where they disappeared.”
IN this text as we see, only bare facts are given, which in no way explain the meaning of what happened. It still remains unclear how the mysterious flutist managed to subjugate the children to his will and, most importantly, “neutralize” the parents. “It smacks of witchcraft here,” they would have said before. Today, most likely, it would be assumed that the Pied Piper mastered the art of mass hypnosis.

In the 16th-17th centuries, there was another curious passage in the legend, which later disappeared. It said that two children still managed to escape and they told the residents of the city the details of the disappearance of their comrades. From their confused story, it followed that, having lagged behind the other children due to fatigue, they saw how the children followed the Pied Piper into a mountain cave and the stone walls closed behind them. A few weeks after these events, one of the surviving children became numb, and the other lost his sight. Superstitious townspeople considered what happened to be the machinations of Satan. They were sure that it was he who appeared in the city under the guise of a flutist.
In addition to the lack of facts reflected in the chronicles and books, the study of the mysterious history is also hampered by the fact that some time after the events described in Hameln, a plague epidemic broke out, which killed most of the witnesses of the tragedy.

A more interesting hypothesis was put forward by the scientist Maynard, who argued that the children fell victim to a special “dance” psychosis that seized them. He gave numerous examples of such cases from the field of history and medicine. Let us recall, for example, the episode with the Children's Crusades, when teenagers, as if seized by a sudden madness, set off unarmed, hoping to defeat the Muslims with the help of songs of religious content.
Another version is reduced to the following. In 1284, a certain recruiter, passing through Hameln, persuaded the young townspeople to follow him for resettlement to another place. Having crossed the mountains, all these people ended up on the territory of modern Romania and settled there. Robert Browning writes:

And this tribe in Transylvania

From all excellent because

That his distant ancestors

As legend has told us,

Once out into the open

From the underground to the heart of the mountains

Where is the unknown force

They were lured at an early age.

In support of this theory, they pointed to a stained-glass window of the 16th century, installed in the Hameln Cathedral Martkirche. It depicts the departure of children after the "emigration agent".

Why was the flutist, as the legend says, dressed in a red and yellow suit? Let me remind the reader that in the clothes of just such colors, those convicted for communication with the devil rose to the fires of the Inquisition.

Choreomania

Dance epidemic of unknown origin

A dance epidemic of unknown origin swept Europe shortly after the epidemic ended. black death. Hundreds of people were engulfed in a frenzied dance, and their ranks were constantly replenished. Crowds obsessed with the dance of St. John, or St. Vitus, as the documents of that time call it, took off from the spot, moving from city to city, and used to scream and jump all day long until exhaustion, then fell to the ground and fell asleep right on a place to wake up and return to normal life.

but if in later times choreomania swept almost all of Western Europe, local outbreaks were observed earlier. So, in 1237 in Erfurt, for some unknown reason, about a hundred children were obsessed with a crazy dance, after which, screaming and jumping, they went out of the city on the road to Armstadt and, having reached there, collapsed in exhaustion, falling into a dream. Their parents managed to find them and bring them back home, but none of the possessed could finally recover, many of them died, others had tremors and convulsive twitches of their limbs until the end of their lives.

Medieval consciousness, which attributed any nervous breakdown to the spells of witches or the devil himself, could easily transform something like this into a legend about the Pied Piper, and the well-known folklore motif about devilish music, which neither people nor animals can resist, was later superimposed on a real basis.

This theory seems convincing, but it has not yet been confirmed.

Maniac pedophile

The theory was put forward by William Manchester in his book A World Illuminated Only by Fire (1992-1993). According to this author, the Pied Piper was in fact a pedophile lunatic who managed to lure 130 children out of the city and then "use them for perverted pleasures". Manchester suggests that some of the children then disappeared without a trace, while others were found crippled or "hanging from trees". The author does not provide any evidence for this. The theory did not arouse interest

Ergotism

On this basis, a theory was put forward that the "revenge of the pied-catcher" was in fact the result of mass psychosis, when one person drags the rest along with him, and the crowd that has lost its mind and, along with it, a sense of self-preservation, is quite capable of falling into a dangerous or disastrous situation

Gypsy theory

It is assumed that the children were carried away by colorfully dressed gypsieswho managed to take them away from the city with songs and dances. However, this point of view is not a large number adherents

similar legends:

Ireland also knows the story of a magical musician, however, not a flutist, but a bagpiper, who took the youth with him.

Sometimes it is also assumed that the rats that came to the legend later were inspired not only by real circumstances, since in the Middle Ages they really represented a disaster for many cities, although not in such a dramatic form as the legend says, but also by ancient Germanic beliefs, as if the souls of the dead move precisely into rats and mice, gathering at the call of the god of Death. In the form of the latter, with such an interpretation, the piper appears

The story of the unknown, who appeared out of nowhere and took the city children with him without any explanation, is also in Brandenburg. The only difference is that the sorcerer played the organistrum and, having lured his victims, disappeared forever with them in Mount Marienberg

In the Harz mountains one day a bagpipe musician appeared: every time he started playing, some girl died. So he killed 50 girls and disappeared with their souls

A similar story exists in Abyssinia - evil demons named Hadjiui Majui, who play pipes, appear in the beliefs. They ride on goats through the villages and with their music, which cannot be resisted, lead children away to be killed.

According to the German researcher Emma Buheim, the basis of its legend about the rat catcher goes back to pagan beliefs about dwarves and elves, who were addicted to kidnapping children and bright costumes that were specially worn to attract children's attention.

Mythology Researcher

An integral attribute of big cities are rats, vile gray animals, scurrying around, stealing supplies and spreading infection. Usually they were fought with the help of cats. In addition to them, special people were also engaged in the destruction of rodents. And the most famous of them is Jack Black, the fearless rat-catcher of Queen Victoria.

Unlike modern-day pest extermination with chemicals and poisons, Black handled them with his bare hands, extracting squirming, squeaky creatures from houses and sewers. A rat lover, he had a lot of experience and collected armfuls of them. Black kept the captured caudates in a special domed cage that he carried instead of a suitcase.

Jack Black turned out to be a virtuoso showman. He demonstrated his professional abilities to the crowd that gathered on the streets of London. Cages were laid out on a makeshift platform, full of rats, all sorts of traps and packages of poisons. Black would put his hand into the rat cage and take out as many of them as he could handle. This caused exclamations of surprise and disgust in the crowd. Next, Black released the rats, and they ran up his arms. The gathered people saw how the tailed ones sat on the shoulders of Jack Black and cleaned their muzzles, or rose on their hind legs and sniffed his ears and cheeks.

Jack Black's abilities were only rivaled by his taste for fashion. He was wearing a high top hat, a red waistcoat, a green coat and white leather leggings, gnawed by the objects of his hunt. Over his shoulder, he wore a leather baldric adorned with a crown with the letters "V.R." (Victoria Regina, or Queen Victoria) and two metal rats on both sides. According to Jack Black in his flyers, Queen Victoria herself promoted him to the title of "Her Majesty the exterminator of rats and moths."

Of course, trapping rodents was not limited to a glamorous costume. In one interview, he told a journalist how a rat bit him on the finger. The infection started and everything looked very bad. But the rat-catcher saved himself by pulling out his broken fangs with tweezers.

Another case was remembered by Jack because he pulled out 300 rodents from one hole in the wall. An ordinary cage was not enough, they had to carry the animals literally in their mouths, in their hands, under their arms and in their pockets.

By intrepid feats like this, Jack Black secured his position as Queen Victoria's chief pied-catcher.

In addition to the destruction of pests, Jack Black bred decorative rats. He kept the colored or spotted animals that came across to him and carried out their selection. Decorative rats in Victorian times were as popular as birds. Young ladies kept them in golden cages for fun. Even Queen Victoria had one or two rats.

Also, the work of rat-catchers at the British court has long been performed by cats. This tradition has survived to this day and now lives in the residence of the Prime Minister. There are cities, world fame which brought legends and fairy tales. Our Murom, for example, is famous for the fact that the hero Ilya was born near him, the German city of Bremen is famous thanks to the fairy tale of the Brothers Grimm, and Hameln has gained notoriety with the legend of the Pied Piper.

Gloomy Hameln is located just ten kilometers from the city of Baron Munchausen - Bodenwerder. On the town hall there is an inscription: « In the year 1284, on the day of Saints Peter and Paul on June 26, the Motley Piper lured 130 children to Mount Koppen in the vicinity of Hameln, where they disappeared » . Around 1375, the description of the "exodus of children" was entered in the chronicle of the city, and the street along which the children left Hameln is still called Silent and it is forbidden to play musical instruments on it.

RATHER FROM HAMELIN

"Who is there in a raincoat walking around,
Drilling passers-by with a sharp look,
Whistling on a black pipe? ..
Lord, save my child!"

Great anxiety in Hamelin.
Rats divorced there passion as much,
Already in the houses do not count the losses -
The magistrate got scared.

And suddenly the magician - inveterate rogue -
Appeared, dressed in a colorful cloak,
March played on a wondrous pipe
And drove the rats right into the Weser.

Finished work at the magistrate.
The magician asked: "Where is the payment?"
And those yulat and so and so:
"What are you paying for? For nothing?

Is the work great - playing the pipe?
Isn't this a witch's joke?
Go away without further ado!"
And the rat-catcher slammed the door.

Meanwhile, freed from rats,
The reborn city rejoices,
In cathedrals - Praise the Lord! -
Bells ring all day long!

A feast for adults, fun for children ...
But suddenly at the northern outpost
The wizard reappeared
He played his fife ...

And at the same moment these sounds
Children ran from all the houses.
And the stranger with the whole crowd
He took them to the Weser with him.

Nobody remembers them now
Forever disappeared in the abyss.
The river is running, the water is flowing.
What price paid the bill!...

Everyone needs to remember this story
To protect children from poison.
Human greed - here it is poison,
Who killed the Hamelin children.

From the poetry of the Vagants
Lane L. Ginzburg

German ballads draw a simple and unambiguous moral from the legend:

"People's greed is poison,
Who killed the Hamelin children."

That is, the legend is most often perceived as a moralizing parable. But what if the legend is based on historical reality? Maybe some man really took away - with the help of cunning or witchcraft spells - children from the city?
It is said that the story with rats in the legend appeared much later, and at the beginning there was only a story about a wandering musician who, with his playing the devil's flute, lured children while their parents were at church service. The earliest version of the legend is set out in the chronicles of the city of Hameln for 1375 in several lines: “In 1284, on the day of John and Paul, which was on the 26th day of the month of June, a flutist dressed in colorful clothes led one hundred and thirty born in Hameln out of the city children on Koppen near Kalvaria, where they disappeared. And that's it.

William Manchester, in his book A World Lit Only by Fire (1992-1993), suggested that the rat-catcher was actually a pedophile nut who managed to lure 130 children out of the city and then "use them for perverse pleasures." Manchester suggests that some of the children then disappeared without a trace, while others were found crippled or "hanging from trees." The author does not provide any evidence for this.

Another very exotic theory is that the Pied Piper was a UFO who, for some unknown reason, took an interest in the Hamelin children.

I am inclined to the version of the Soviet ethnographer Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp. Analyzing the story Tricky Science”, Propp sees in it not just the story of a young man who was apprenticed and returned as an experienced artisan, but the signs of some very ancient rite - older than the reality of the 19th century, when the fairy tale was first written down.

“The teacher to whom the boy gets is a deep old man, a sorcerer, a goblin, a sage. Sometimes he comes from the grave if you say "oh". He appears if you sit on a stump. This is the “grandfather of the forest”. From these examples it is clear that the teacher comes from the forest, lives in another kingdom, takes and takes children away from their parents into the forest for three years (for one year, for seven years).

What can a young man learn from a "forest" grandfather?

He learns to turn into animals or begins to understand their language. “They gave him to study at different languages to one sage al, also a knowledgeable person, so that he knows in every possible way whether a bird sings, a horse neighs, a sheep bleats; Well, in a word, to know everything!”

About the ways in which learning is carried out, storytellers are almost always silent. Nor can they say anything about the teacher's dwelling.

Obviously we're dealing with a rite dedications, which is part of the ritual system of many primitive tribes.

"At dedication, Propp writes, - young men are introduced into all the mythical representations, ceremonies, rituals and techniques of the tribe. The researchers express the opinion that they are presented with a certain arcane science, i.e. that they acquire knowledge. Indeed, they are told the myths of the tribe. One eyewitness says that “they sat quietly and learned from the old people; it was like a school.” However, this is not the essence of the matter. It's not about knowledge, but about skill, not about knowing the imaginary world of nature, but about influencing it. It is this side of the matter that is well reflected in the fairy tale "Cunning Science", where, as indicated, the hero learns to turn into animals, that is, he acquires skill, not knowledge.

This education or training is the essential feature of initiation throughout the world. In Australia (New South Wales), the old men taught the young to play local games, sing tribal songs, and dance some of the corroborries, which were forbidden to women and the uninitiated. They were also introduced into the sacred traditions (stories) of the tribe and into its science.

These performances and dances were not spectacles. They were a magical way of influencing nature. The initiate studied all the dances and songs very carefully and for a long time. The slightest mistake could be fatal, could spoil the whole ceremony.

The heroes of the Russian fairy tale do not bring dances from the forest teacher - they bring magical abilities. But dancing was also an expression or a way of using these abilities. The dance is lost in a fairy tale, only the forest, the teacher and the magical skill remain. But in fairy tales of other types one can find some traces and dances. Dances were performed to music, and musical instruments were considered sacred, forbidden. The house in which the initiation took place, and in which the initiates sometimes lived for some time, was sometimes called the "house of the flutes." The sound of these flutes was considered the voice of the spirit. If we keep this in mind, it will become clear why the hero in the forest hut so often finds gusli-samogudy, pipes, violins, etc. ”

If we return to the legend of the Pied Piper, we can easily see that we have in front of us, as it were, half of the fairy tale "Cunning Science". The legend is rooted in the Neolithic and leads us to the foundations on which all human civilization has grown. We hear the story of how the Master, who wields the magic flute, takes away from the city the children who are about to be initiated.

It is clear that this withdrawal was perceived by a part of the population, and above all by the boys themselves, as a disaster. They do not yet know what great blessings await them ahead. But although the act of withdrawal seemed hostile, it was required Public opinion. Subsequently, when the rite began to die out, Public Opinion changed.

Probably, for more than a thousand years of history, the happy ending of the tale was lost, and it itself merged with the very real memories of the Hamelin townspeople about the famine caused by rats. And its main character has turned from a wise forest elder and savior of children into a vengeful killer...

It is known that there was a cave on Mount Koppen in the vicinity of the city, in which the pagans in ancient times made sacrifices to their gods, and the Hamelins called it "the devil's kitchen". Some believe that a wandering musician took the children to a pagan festival that took place on that day, June 26, 50 kilometers from Hameln. Consequently, the Flutist could be a priest, and children of 10-12 years old could be released for the ceremony initiation.

Legends strikingly similar to the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, no, no, yes, and are found in Europe. The French talk about a certain monk who, in retaliation for deceiving a magistrate, took away not children, but pets. There is a tale in Ireland about a bagpiper who led the boys and girls out of the city, who knows where. On the English Isle of Wight, the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin is repeated literally word for word - with the slight difference that the musician leads the children not uphill, but into the forest. And in Germany itself, several cities at once claim to be considered the birthplace of a magician with a flute, who is called either a hermit monk or a sorcerer.

This multiplicity of legends indirectly confirms our assumption that the Pied Piper of Hamelin was in fact a pagan priest of the type of the Slavic Magi. After all, the appearance of the Slavic Magi is described many times in church annals. This means that the rites of initiation were secretly performed in medieval Europe, and the pagan "teachers" regularly came for the "disciples".

In the XIII century, pagan traditions were not yet forgotten either in Europe or in Rus'. In church annals there are references to how sometimes pagan wise men came out of the forests and appeared in cities. The Novgorod Chronicle under 1227 preserved the news of the burning of the four Magi.

Why such cruelty to the Magi? Maybe they burned them because they were afraid for their children? Maybe in those days they still remembered and knew that the Magi in the forest conduct initiation rites. And that after these rites they return from the forest quite different People. But by that time the Church had replaced the initiations with the rite of water baptism. The church established a monopoly and did not want to put up with competitors.

It must also be emphasized that the 13th century was a kind of apogee of Christian religiosity. The Church has entered the apogee of its glory. All aspects of social, political and economic life were under the control of the Church. It was the "summer solstice" of the Church.

It was a time of mass religious exaltation. Time for the dances of St. Vitus. So, in 1237 in Erfurt, for some unknown reason, about a hundred children were obsessed with a crazy dance, after which, screaming and jumping, they went out of the city on the road to Armstadt and, having reached there, collapsed in exhaustion, falling into a dream. Their parents managed to find them and bring them back home, but none of the possessed could finally recover, many of them died, others had tremors and convulsive twitches of their limbs until the end of their lives.

Medieval consciousness could transform something like this into a legend about the Pied Piper, and the well-known folklore motif about devilish music, which neither people nor animals can resist, was later superimposed on a real basis.

In the folklore of different peoples, musicians, who have the ability to enchant all living things, are given considerable attention. Sirens, who seduced the ancient Greek sailors with their songs, but pierced on the Argonauts and the Odyssey, are the same berry with the Colorful Flutist. Obviously, Orpheus is closely related to him, before whose art all nature bowed, not excluding wild animals, and the hero of the Kalevala, the musician Väinämöinen. It is impossible not to recall that the magical properties in folklore were attributed to the music and singing of the "little people" - fairies and elves. According to legend, the one who heard this singing will either die soon or leave his home and look for a magical land, not knowing peace until the end of his days.

A little earlier in the same XIII century, a children's crusade took place.

Here we should continue the theme of initiations.

As you know, in the Middle Ages, boys at about 12 years of age were sent to study with a master. The apprentice lived in the master's house and learned his trade. For the first four years he worked in the master's house for free. Then, after four years, he was transferred to the category of apprentice, and now had the right to keep 50% of the money earned. As a rule, in four years of work as an apprentice, a young man could save a decent amount of money to buy himself the necessary tools and become a master himself.

Researchers note that at first the student was in the family of the master as a "spirit" in Soviet army: he unquestioningly carried out any order and often underwent uniform mockery, especially from the wife of the master and other, more "advanced" students. What is this if not initiation in some perverted form?

Further. Masters created professional corporations. For example, all the builders of medieval Catholic churches and cathedrals were part of the corporation of master masons. They had their own corporate solidarity: not "initiated" masons were not allowed to participate in the construction of temples. They had their own hierarchy: apprentice - journeyman - master - great master.

It is here that modern Freemasonry has its origins. This modern Freemasonry was formerly called "speculative Freemasonry" in order to distinguish "freemasons" from real masons. "Freemasons" borrowed from professional masons their corporate solidarity, hierarchical structure, initiations into degrees and added here a salad from a variety of teachings - from Hermes Trismegistus to Karl Marx.

Freemasonry also served as a model for the creation of all modern political parties, including in the USSR. Soviet pioneers - Komsomol members - party members are very reminiscent of medieval apprentices - apprentices - masters. It is only necessary, of course, to understand that the Soviet system was profanity Freemasonry, and Freemasonry, in turn, was profanity, "speculation" of the perverted initiations of the medieval masons.

Thus, the CPSU is a good example counter-initiations. Counterinitiation is the opposite of initiation. Since the logic of the cyclical process, according to Tradition, inevitably moves along the path of degradation, from the Golden Age to the Iron Age, we must admit that in modern world there is no real, authentic initiation. Therefore, counter-initiation is nothing but profanation initiation, it is a shell without internal content. The hierarchs of counter-initiation - all these Trotskys and Lenins - Guenon, following Islamic esotericism, would call "avliya esh-shaitan", i.e. "Saints of Satan"