In the very real town of Hamelin, Germany, that evidence can be found out in the open, even today. A stone memorial at what is known as the ‘Piper’s House’ dates back to 1602 and reads: “A.D. 1284 on the 26th of June, the day of St. John and St. Paul, 130 children born in Hamelin were led out of town by a piper wearing multicolored clothes. After passing the Calvary near the Koppenberg they disappeared forever.” The Koppenberg is a hill in Belgium, and also a mountain peak in South Eastern Germany. It could also simply be referring to ‘the hills’ all of which further complicates things. Then there is an entry into Hamelin’s records in 1384 which reads: “It is 100 years since our children left.”
There are also several manuscripts still existing in Latin and Low-Middle German which relate the story of 130 children who all vanished on the 26th of June, 1284, and that they were all following a piper in multi colored clothes.
We will never know the end of this story, as the clues hereafter are mostly supposition. It may have been due to a number of things, some of which include:
Children removed for a better life in the east
Children recruited for military use
Removed to keep safe from the plague or other spreading illness
Dance mania
Pagan celebration of midsummer.
Then the most likely: relocated to new German lands in the east.
The Dance mania may sound odd to some of you, but it has been a very real occurrence from time to time. Dance Mania, also known as St. Vitus’ dance, is a type of mass hysteria that afflicted people to the point of utter exhaustion, and sometimes even death. But in reality, the dance craze affects adults as well as children, and afflicted people don’t just disappear, especially en-mass. Having them dance away to some unknown fate would likely have been so odd an occurrence that there would have been some reference to the dancing.
The most likely occurrence is that the children were relocated to the east to what would have hopefully been a better life, or at least better opportunities for them than they may have had in Hamelin with a colorfully dressed piper leading them along the way. Whatever really happened, it was such a unique occurrence that a story of their disappearance has lived on in to this day.
Here below is a set from Hameln in 1922 featuring the Pied Piper’s tale in a six note set. The front is identical to all notes.
Perhaps the best we can derive from this old story is that we must keep our promises – to be honest and fair – or suffer the consequences of our greed.