May 31, 2018 • 40 mins
In the German town of Hameln a tragedy that took place on a specific date in 1284 and befell specifically 130 children is commemorated every year. Aside from those two details, the event is cloaked in mystery. What about the Pied Piper fairy tale is real?
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
dot Com. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there.
This is Stuff you Should Know fairy Tale Edition. Jerry
(00:21):
is supposedly on vacation. Yea, what's going on? But she
came in here just for us, Jerry. I think she
feels beholden. That's nice, which is weird because she's We've
had guest producers. I don't know. Maybe she feels like
her job is threatened. Is today the day I die? Oh? Jeesus?
Hoping Jerry knows it. Can't we at least get these
(00:42):
two in the can first? Yeah, well probably unless something
really crazy happens in the next hour and two. Yeah,
that'll give me time to get in touch with like
the five people I have on my list to replace you.
I know, the five Bano right, Obama? Right, Michael Stipe,
Michael Stipe, Bobby Fisher. I think there was one more.
(01:05):
I can't remember, Bobby Fisher, the chess player. Yeah, that's
a little random. Well, I want to correct that episode
and Optimus Prime that's the fifth one, that's right, yea. Uh, Chuckers.
Have you ever heard of fairy Tale before? Yeah? We
uh we did two very good episodes. Oh, if you
(01:25):
say so yourself. No, these were good. I don't often
say that, but in November of two thousand fifteen, we
did it back to backer with the dark origins of
fairy tales and how the Grimm's fairy tales work or
the grand Brothers. We had fairy tale fever. We did,
but man, we licked it. So did you go back
and listen to them and you're like, wow, these are
(01:45):
good or you just remember them being good. I remember
them being good, okay, and being especially kind of proud
of those too. Really, that's fantastic. That's how I feel
about your limb is torn off? Now? What? That was
a good one good title about reattachment surgery. Remember that? Yeah?
I think that that titles all you. That's a Josh
Clark title. You've got some good titles out there too.
(02:09):
What's the deal with blank? You know who's really good
at coming up with titles? Bono? Yeah, where the streets
have no name? Right? Where the where the streets have
no drums? M dude, you just did it. So we're
talking about fairy tales today, specifically, specifically, we're talking about
(02:29):
the fairy tale of the Pie Piper of Hamlin, And
as far as fairy tales go, it seems to be
a little different than other fairy tales. And the reason
why it's a little different is because, horrifically it's people
think scholars, not just you know, average truck like, real
(02:51):
deal scholars think that something actually happened that formed the
basis of this fairy tale. Right Whereas with Hansel and
Gretel it wasn't based on some witchy lady who ate children, No,
but that one might have had some basis in fact too.
How about like rumpel Stiltskin, probably not based in fact? Right?
(03:13):
You remember the little guy who, like you, trick him
into saying his own name back? The little I don't
think he had a big heart. He had an insatiable
sexual appetite, is what it was. Oh, the little girls.
The big heart was Bono, right man. We're gonna get
so many emails from people being like, layoff Bono. What's
what's with the bono references? Who's Bono? They must work
(03:36):
with that Bono guy? I wish so chuck Um the
pie Piper. The reason why we say it might be
based in fact is because there's actual, like historic evidence
that kind of supports this thing, and you can find
it in this town of Hamlin, which is a real place.
It's not a made up like fairy tale land. Like
(03:56):
you knows your first clue. Yeah, most fair detales are
not set in an actual place, right, I don't know,
are they know? They're just made up, or they're in
a very vague place, or they take place in a
larger place like oh, in Germany one day, or in
Bavaria one day, not like in this town that actually
(04:18):
existed at the time we're saying it did. Which is
another thing too, because if you look at the actual
fairy tales we'll get to in a second, there's like
a specific date that also is very unusual for their tale.
So the more you dig into it, the more you're like, yeah,
this might have actually happened. And then what you think, oh,
this might have actually happened, then you're struck with some
(04:41):
of the greatest dread human being can experience, because it's
something bad happened, is what happened? Let's talk about it,
all right, Well, let's get into the original fairy tale,
The Grimm's Brothers Tale of the Pipe Piper. Not even
Irish um. Jane McGrath, good old Jane from back in
(05:06):
the day wrote this one, and she points out that
it is a tale, a cautionary tale about governance as
well as taking responsibility for financial agreements. She's right, but
it putting it that way, it seems a little funny.
But it is twelve eighty four in Hamlin in Germany,
and there was a rat infestation in the town at
(05:28):
the time, and the mayor and this is the fairy tale,
you're gonna right, yeah, yeah, And so that the mayor
of the town didn't know what to do. The burgermeister,
Oh yeah, maister Burger. Uh, the stranger comes into town
and war and I didn't know what pid even meant.
I didn't either. What is it? Multi colored? Yeah, he
(05:49):
wore multi colored clothes, pied multi colored clothes. That's all
he was. He was a piper who wore colorful clothing.
Had nothing to do with eating pies or I thought
walk king on his feet, you know, he thought that's
what it meant. Yeah, why because I think like a
like pedestrian comes from pied p well, but I think
(06:11):
it's like maybe Italian or something that certainly makes more
sense than me having no clue. Yeah, but I was
way off, so it doesn't matter. He walked. He did walk.
That was the other reason I thought that too. So
his outfit looked a little weird. Apparently multicolored people didn't
dress like that. I reckon. I saw though that it
was also like um, like a splendid outfit that he
(06:36):
attracted a lot of attention, and people were like, I
wish I could, I wish I had the Cohonans dressed
like you pie piper dance around with a band. Uh.
And he had a called it a musical pipe or
some kind of flute, not a smoking pipe. Heads no uh.
And he hears about this rat problem. He comes into town.
(06:57):
He drags his fingernails along the chalkboard and gets everyone attention,
and the down meeting says, I'll kill that shark. Oh,
you gotta do it, but no, no, no, I'll kill
the rats. Yeah, but in the voice, I can't do
quint well, whatever, you can do anything. You're like the
rich little of this this company. Jerry's laughing at us
for no reason. She's so sick of this man, she's
(07:20):
really tickled today, Jerry, are you stoned? No, she's been
smoking her own magical pipe. So they agree on a
price to get rid of the rats. Piper takes out
his his little his little hand flute. Yeah, yeah, I
don't know if that's what's called. But the price is important.
Can I go into the price for a second. So
he initially said that he would get rid of the
(07:41):
rats for a thousand florins, which is either coins or
money from Italy or France or the Netherlands, but money
a thousand a lot of the time, thousand pieces of money.
And this this town of Hamlin was so overrun by rats.
Apparently all their cats had died. Though yes they got
they beat the cats. I didn't see explained what happened
(08:04):
to the cats, just that the cats died, and that's
why the town is over rung. Okay, which is a
weird little thing, don't you think. Yeah, because my first
thing was like, why a pie piper just get some cats?
The cats had all died, all right, good thinking, chuck um.
But they they say a thousand florins will give you
fifty thousand florins if you get rid of these rats.
Our problem is so bad, and he says done. But
(08:25):
was that a facetious offer? I think it was a
desperate a desperate boast. Okay, But the pipe piper was like,
all right, I'll agree to your terms. I just wanted
a thousand, but fifty thousand it is, and they went
I think we ever spent. I regret saying that. You
should hear the guy. So he pulls out the instrument
he um starts playing. As the story goes, all the
(08:48):
rats congregate around him, and he leaps about and dances
through town into the Weser River, which the rats drowned,
which is complete um fabrication, because rats are very good swimmers.
They really are. I thought about that too. I even
looked it up. They're good swimmers, not just rats you've
seen it's rats in general. Yeah. I mean the first thing, honestly,
(09:11):
when I heard that, the first thing that made me
think that was like, wait a minute, first blood. He's
in that abandoned mind chat. Those rats are swimming all
over the place. So I looked it up. I was like,
is that true? And apparently rats are really good swimmers,
better than others. It's in there too, So this fairy
tale stinks of bs already, okay, But the the story
(09:32):
goes that the rats followed this guy in a trance
to the river, whereupon they drowned. Maybe they were in
the trance and that was why they couldn't swim, because
they were just so lulled by his his hand flute,
his smooth jazz. Should you take a break there and
finish the story after, Oh, it's quite a cliff banger.
All right, let's do that, all right, Chuck, We're back
(10:16):
to lay it on them. Man, that was that was
high class. Well, they drown all the rats. The pie
piper is successful. Everyone parties German style, which is to
say they probably got hammered on eight eight ounce beers.
Have you ever been to Germany? You ever had the
beers there? The big Yeah? I mean they've got big
old beers there for sure. And they have lids on
(10:38):
their their mugs too, because you know, there's so much
of it you can just set it down, save it
for later. But I don't think they save it for later.
The beer garden I went too did not have the lids.
Maybe I've just seen in those on TV. But what
they did have was a four and a half foot
tall woman with popeye sized four arms, carrying six of
(11:01):
those giants, like like a pro, not like a bro.
They were pros well too. It's probably sold to the
beer garden at a young age and was raised. Please
tell me that's not the case. Um alright, so, uh
where are we? Townspeople are partying? They're they're getting hammered,
they're singing, they're they're they're prosting, singing your German beer
(11:23):
hall uh songs as they are one to do. And
then dude says, uh, what's up with that? All those florins? Yeah,
he's like, everybody, I'm really glad you enjoyed my work,
but now it's time for me to go pay me.
And did they just stiff them or did they say, well,
let's go back to the thousand. Uh, they said, we're
(11:46):
not giving you fifty thousand florins. What you We thought
you were going to get rid of these rets through
hard work. You just played some flute, Like that's cool
that you can do that with the flute, but that's
not really work. So no, we're not gonna pay you
fifty thousand florence. He's like, well, in a thousand florins
at least that's what I originally agreed to. And they're like,
how about this. We're gonna give you fifty and if
(12:07):
you're not happy with that, then you're getting nothing. And
he was still so mad that they're like, fine, nothing,
get out of town. And he says, you will regret
you know what that's like. That's like highering the critter
remover because you have a raccoon in your attic. You
agree to a price. He comes over and shoots the
raccoon and says game over, and you're like, wait a minute.
(12:29):
I expected a little more like uh, like you were
going to hypnotize him or or coax him down from
the roof with your smooth jazz. Right, not just shoot it.
Anybody could shoot it. I thought you're gonna like step
on it or something. Yeah, Like I would have shot it.
Looking for a peaceful, less solution right in place, I
have a bullet hole in my house. Now have you
(12:49):
ever had to call one of those people a raccoon remover? Well,
I'll just you know those dudes, just like you know,
I'll do snakes and raccoons or whatever. I haven't either,
but a lot of my friends do that. I'm over one.
I think I mentioned with cockroaches right now, and it's
just it's getting bad still, Yeah, dude, because I don't
know what to do. Hire an exterminator. Yeah, but we're
(13:12):
not into the poison stuff. But I think it's like,
we gotta do it. I think there's green exterminators that
are not quite as deadly. Jerry's nodding, But will they
kill all the cockroaches? Probably? Probably? You probably with their
magic flute, and I need to do something. It's gotten
out of hand. Yeah, you got to do something, like
(13:32):
I almost I'm gonna tell you what happens, but I
feel like people judge me on how disgusting it is.
We can always edit it out later, all right. I'll
go in and and this is not like it's not
like food is out. I will clean the kitchen. I
will go in there to get a glass of water.
At midnight, I'll turn the light on and a dozen
will scatter. Jerry's geting, Nope, like I will just I
(13:56):
will hear them going, sure, Yeah, that's one of the
creepiest things. And they you know, as soon as they
see that light, they're gone. And it sounds like we
live in filth. But it doesn't matter. We're infested. They're
just like, I don't know what to do. Yeah, well, um,
I think you may want to call an exterminator, but fine,
one you live into cator. I'm sure you'd be hard
(14:16):
pestifind an exterminator that did use deadly You throw a
rock indicator and you'll hit a dust So I yes,
I think it might be time. All right, Sorry about
getting sidetracks so much. They offer him, what fifty fifty
not even not fifty thou or a thousand fifty? And
so what does he say? He says, but he did
(14:39):
that little everybody. You can't see me, but you know
where you flick the underside of your chain, that feel
like that's Italian? Well, I mean this is Germany, it's
Lower Saxony. It wasn't too far from Germany. But is
that Italian? I was just wondering. Yeah, it feels like
a very like Italian thing to do. Yeah, okay, right exactly.
You gotta say it like that, all right. So he
gives him that number and says I'm gonna come back.
(15:02):
Does he even warn them and say I'm gonna come
back and get your kids or I'm just gonna it
depends on it's all good, you'll see me again. It
depends on the story. Some say, yeah, he vowed vengeance.
Some say he came back a month later. Some say
he came back a year later. Some say he just
immediately started playing his flute. Some say, and I think
the brothers grim version is that he waited until the
(15:22):
town went to sleep, and then came through the town
and started playing again. All right, but this time he's
wearing Hunter's clothing. Did not see that anywhere? Oh? Really
does that? Bs? Well? I don't think it's b S.
I think this story has just been added to so
many times over there. But yeah, I shouldn't have ever
been to anything. All right, So he comes back regardless
(15:43):
of what he's wearing. Let's say he's buck naked, which
makes it even more fun. Well, you just added to
the legend just there. He starts playing this flute again,
but this time the children are entranced. He leads like
a hundred and thirty kids supposedly, Yeah, paying attention to
a number. It seems a little specific, doesn't it does.
He leads a hundred and thirty children out of town
(16:04):
up a mountain to a cave. They supposedly enter and
are never heard from again, right, And the mountain has
a landslide and covers up the cave mouth, and supposedly
it was a magical door that opened in the mountain
that revealed the key. They go in, doors closed, landslide gone,
(16:25):
never heard from again, like you said, And the townspeople
are like, there goes our labor pool, there goes my baby,
there goes their labor pool. Who's going to service at
the beer gardens? And supposedly there in one version, at
least um there was the mayor's grown daughter was among
that group, and this feels like a specific jab at
(16:46):
the mayor, like even though your daughter's grown, I'm gonna
and transfer with my flute as well. Yeah, well I
don't think that was in the original Grand Brothers one either,
But but two children survived correct or they come back,
I think. And the Grimm Brothers version is just one.
Sometimes it's up to three. But there there's in a
lot of retellings, there's a kid who either Um is
(17:09):
deaf and so can't hear the magic flute song, so
it's not entranced. Um has some sort of physical disability,
and so he or she can't keep up with the
rest of the kids and survives from that um or
I think it's blind and can't see their way. Either way,
some kid who had some unique characteristic that kept them
(17:33):
from being um entranced or whatever. Uh is like the
eyewitness that comes back and tells the parents what happened,
or in another version, is just a skeptic child skeptic.
This can't be happening. Louis the child's skipt um. That's funny.
(17:55):
So all right, so let's get into this. It may
not to be fictions, as it turns out, because a
lot of historians and scholars have looked into this. You
talked about the specificity being a little weird. One thing
we do know is that at one point there was
a stained glass window in the in the town church
um that depicted and this was what around thirteen hundreds
(18:18):
is after it would have happened, but I mean sixteen
years in memory, living memory, it was when they first
erected that window, which kind of makes sense as a memorial. Uh.
And on that window it said on the day of
John Paul, I'm sorry John and Paul. One thirty children
in Hamlin went to Calvary were brought through all kinds
(18:39):
of danger to the copin mountain and lost. Yeah. So
the Calvary thing that I thought was another word for Heaven,
isn't it. I'm gone, I'm going to Calvary in that
was like in that like the hill where was crucified.
If I know this, surely you know used to know this.
(19:01):
I know it looms large and and Christianity, but I
can't remember exactly. I think it's like shorthand for I'm
going to meet my maker. I saw elsewhere that they
referred to the mountain as cavalry. Yeah. They also referred
to the area that the children went to Calvary as
the execution place. I never saw any explanation of that.
(19:21):
And then the copp And Mountain. I don't understand why
that would be also named Calvary, and they would mention
at the same place twice with two different names. So
it's a bit of a mystery. But the point is,
about fifteen sixteen years after this event supposedly happened, or
the fairy tale takes place, the town of Hamlin, Germany
in um Lower Saxony or West Falley, I think is
(19:45):
what it's called now, put put up of stained glass
window commemorating this and the window did not survive, but
apparently there are accounts of that window, yeah, like in
more than one place. Yeah, and it was I mean
you can understand that it would be because it was
in the town church for hundreds of years before it
was destroyed. No one knows how it was destroyed, but
there is documentation that this window existed. Obviously, no living
(20:09):
historians saw it with their own eyes, but there's enough,
um documentary evidence that it seems to be. Yes, there
was a window that was erected in That is a
very weird thing to do to just make up right,
very weird, um, especially in the church. Yeah, you don't
why you go to hell for that? So that was
(20:31):
that was the first documentary evidence, right. The next one
I saw comes a hundred years later in four and
um it's in the Hamlin Town Chronicle for that year,
and all it says is it is one hundred years
since our children left. Yeah. Kind of weird. And what
is that just a blurb? I guess so you'd think
(20:53):
a hundred year commemoration they might add a little more
than that. Yeah, and what is this the Luneberg Manu's
script This was about a hundred years after the window.
And this was a monk who wrote it, Heinrich of Hereford,
and he says, he writes an account and says a
man about thirty years old came to town playing a
(21:14):
flute and lead the children out. Yeah, pretty simple. Yeah,
but what's noteworthy about that one. There's a couple of things. Um,
So the the piper doesn't show up in the first
in the window, right, but he does show up in
the Lumberg manuscript. He mentions the piper. But no rats
(21:37):
in any of these, right, not yet. But the other
thing about the Lumberg manuscript is that it Looomberg is
a nearby town. So there are other towns that are
talking about this event that happened in their own chronicles. Right,
it was one of the reasons why. But it supports
the idea that it's real, because if it's just this
one town that's deluded, even if other towns are talking
(22:00):
about it, they'll probably be by the way, they're all nuts.
But other towns chronicles seemed to be verifying that this
happened or recounting this story in like a credulous way.
So something happened in twelve eighty four, and the evidence
is starting to mount. Um. But the other thing about
the fact that this is another town is that this
town Loomburg and other towns. Um cited that Hambling came
(22:24):
to be known to commemorate things counting backward or forward
from the date of twelve eighty four. So, for example,
they put up a gate in fifteen fifty six in
the town. This is what they inscribed on the gate,
chuck uh In this year of fifteen fifty six, two
(22:45):
hundred and seventy two years after the magician led a
hundred and thirty children out of the town, this portal
was erected. That's like saying, like this, we're putting up
the sewer two hundred and sixty two years after our
children were led out of town by a magician. Enjoy
the sewer. Like, that's a weird thing to inscribe in something.
And apparently the town became known for that kind of thing.
(23:08):
What just these random inscriptions about this weird, like mysterious event. Yeah,
just like dating everything from twelve eighty four on based
on their their children leaving. And again you'll notice it
mentions a hundred and thirty children. Things changed over the retelling.
But the one thing that's remained the same is the
hundred and thirty children leaving. Even before the piper shows
(23:31):
up in the story, a hundred and thirty children are
cited each and every time. Yeah, but in what we
don't know is that, like some symbolic things, that all metaphor. Um.
Should we take a break and get to the theories,
all right, let's do that, all right. The theories are varied, Um.
(24:13):
One of the common ones makes that makes a lot
of sense is that there was some disease that killed
all these kids, and then this story is some sort
of metaphor for what happened to their children. And the
fact that rats come into play at some point have
led people to speculate that it might be the bubonic plague. Yeah,
there's a guy named um, Count Froben Christoph von Zimmer.
(24:37):
Can you say it like that? Frob Now? I don't know,
but I know that that guy will steal your soul
in the middle of the night if you're not careful. Yeah, so,
Count Froben Christoph von Zimmer. You can only say all
of his names, You can't her. He wrote a chronicle
in five from another nearby town and he was the
(24:58):
one who seems to event produced the rats. And so
at that point the piper goes from just a weirdo
magician to ratt and fonger, Yeah, rat catcher, Yeah, which
was a job, it was, And I mean like like
this town would have had rats, Any town would have
had rats, So it would have been, like, it's understandable
like that the rats would come into it, and it's
(25:21):
not like that's just, you know, a totally outlandish addition
to the story. But the fact that it doesn't show
up until fifteen sixty five, and this has been documented
for hundreds of years up to that point, seems a
little fishy. And it certainly seems weird that it would
have been the plague because the play couldn't come around yet,
right right, And it also seems fishy that it doesn't
(25:42):
mention anything about adults and any sort of rat carrying
or diseased rat would it seems like it wouldn't just
affect kids. No, it doesn't make any sense, No, it doesn't.
But the idea that a hundred and thirty kids were
taken from the town in one four or fashion, you
could say, well, it's like some sort of disease. One
(26:05):
of the other diseases that got um put up was
Parkinson's I believe or no, Huntington's I'm sorry, which is
a stupid theory. It's a terrible theory. Huntington's disease is
an inherited disease, so that would mean that every kid
in the town had inherited Huntington's from their parents, who
apparently weren't showing any symptoms. I don't know, I couldn't
(26:27):
find it, but it's a terrible one. And then the
idea that so it's not infectious, it's rare, and everybody's
symptoms coming on at the same time in dying. The
reason why they said that, though, was because supposedly um
the shakes from it, the palsy, would account for the
dancing of the children. It seems like a pretty dumb
(26:50):
thing to zero in stretch Huntington disease were crossing off
the list all right. One of my favorites is that
the children left on their own as part of one
of the crusades. And apparently the one thing that doesn't
quite align is the timeline, because a few decades previous
there were in fact young people children probably teenagers, doctor
(27:13):
were like eight year old participating in the crusades, one
of them would have a vision from God and say,
you know, we should totally cover the crusades. I don't
think we have we done that? No, not yet. There's
a really good article on the site too, would be
it's a pretty dense single. Yeah, we might do too.
Two part are on the crusades coming. Uh, So you
(27:35):
would you know, one of those kids would have a
vision from God and then all the kids would follow
and say, all right, when we take our broadswords that
we can barely lift and go fight the good fight. Right.
So that's one theory, and that's actually a pretty uh
it's that that's a little more rooted in reality. Like, yes,
there were children's crusade before documented. It's possible it happened
(27:58):
a decade or two later. Like if if it was
in the area and well known, some other kid could
have been like, okay, let me try my hand at it,
changes his name to Jim Jones and says follow me
to Jerusalem. Right, So that that one could have happened.
It's possible. Um the other one, and this is supposedly
the most widely held theory. Chuck was that this is
(28:20):
all part of the oh sedlung o S. This is
a tongue twister O S T s I E D
l u n G, which is basically an exodus or
an eastward expansion from Germany to Transylvania, Romania area which
(28:42):
was being newly settled by um Western Europeans after conquering,
like the whole Dracula era. So the idea is an
adult came and said, hey, kids, why don't you come
with me and we'll we'll go like populate eastern Europe
pretty much right right, so um, and there is evidence
(29:03):
that this this did like this definitely happened, right, there
was a migration eastward. Um. And the big thing about
this one is that they were misinterpreting the word kids
or children that it could have been the town's children.
But it's like their their children, they weren't kids. They
were you know, young adults who were who would have
(29:24):
represented like, you know, a lot of the workforce. So
that would have been a big deal had they left.
So that's a that's I think the most widely held
one right now. Well, one of the traditions you're hanging
onto is uh and I kind of teased it with
that dumb bano jerk jerk, poor Bono, he's like that
(29:46):
bono joke earlier is uh today still Um. The street
where this supposedly all happened, um is called the bungalowsan
Sasa street with no drum, street without drums, And to
this day they won't allow people to play music or
dance on that street. Right, the rest of the town
(30:07):
and including that street, but really the rest of the
town is the whole town is dedicated to this legend. Um.
I thought you dedicated to music and dancing. Well, I'm
except for the street they do. There is a musical
called Rats that's put on in the town seriously, um.
And there's there's like a pie piper statue and recreations
(30:28):
every Sunday in the summer. Oh yeah, it's huge tourist
town for this. Um. There's like a I think a
Rats blug cocktails that they serve. I saw. It's like
a mental falss article. I mentioned that. But Um, the
town is dedicated to this. But there's there's the fact
that they're still talking about it is not just legend,
(30:49):
it's um. It's like they're they're still telling that story
to an extent, you know what I mean, keeping it alive,
not just for tourist dollars because it looms large because
this is their ancestry. Well, they definitely, Um. There are
some more um theories that haven't gained as much traction,
(31:10):
Like there was a pedophile that came. Um, these children
were just maybe just simply sent away because they're very poor.
Because that happened. That's my theory that that was just
sort of the regular thing that would happen. Is we're
also poor, you go away and live a better life somewhere. Yeah,
And that's where Hansel and Gretel is kind of rooted
in reality, the idea of child abandonment. Remember we talked
(31:31):
about that. I believe in the in one of the
fairy Tale episodes from before that like if you fell
on hard times, just taking your kid out to the
woods and being like, best of luck. It was a
viable thing to do during the Middle Ages. And it's
possible that this town, basically said it would be like
a combination of the guy coming from Romania and saying
(31:52):
follow me, and the parents being like, maybe you should
go with him, And then that would explain why the
whole thing is written in like such vague, flowery language.
To me, that indicates that they're they're working out guilt.
There's guilt by this town vague. They're not direct. Other
(32:12):
towns are talking about this legend in much more explicit terms,
But in the town of Hamlin, it's all very like
like flowery and and poetic and vague, And it makes
me think they're they're covering something up that they have
to get off their chest, but they're still they can't
bring themselves to actually say what it was. Well, that
(32:33):
sort of jibes then with um, this dude, he's a
children's poet named Michael Rosen. He sent that one article.
He actually went to Hamlin and hooked up with a
guy named Michael Boyer from the tourism office there, and
Boyer says that he thinks the rats were added and
this this makes sense with your theory. Was that just
(32:55):
sort of an attempt to wash away what he said,
we're bad memories, like a ever up to draw attention
away from this awful thing. They're like, hey, let's tell
this rat story, right, But if you'll notice also in
that story with the rats there there is guilt by
the town. The town is guilty of something and they
(33:15):
lose their children as a result. So if the rats
were actually part of the original story, even if it
wasn't documented, even if there weren't real rats, it still
is putting some veneer of guilt onto the town. It
wasn't something that just happened to them. This thing befell
them because they did something wrong. I don't I feel
like there could be a deeper mystery though, Yeah, I
(33:37):
think there is. Like, for real, I think there's something
really happened in Hamlin in twelve eighty four and they
lost a hundred and thirty kids somehow, and the town
it was psychically damaged by it. Are you going to
title this one pie Piper colon cold case? That's a
good one. Actually not? Okay, you got anything else? No?
(33:58):
Now I want to know more. I know I got
sucked into this. I can't remember which of the articles
I sent it got me, but I don't remember how
I came across it, but it was it was like, oh,
I've never thought of this, And it's not like you
can do this with every um fairy tale. Right there's
you know, there's there's probably no rapondola and probably no
(34:20):
rumple Stiltskin, Hansel and Gretel's just so vague. Probably happened
to multiple children, but this one, this happened in Hamlin
in twelve eighty four. Something happened. We may never know
what it was, but it's pretty interesting. My mind goes
really dark and thinks, like, what if there was just
a mass murder? Well, one more thing, one more thing.
(34:40):
I'm glad you brought that up. So the execution place
that the Coppin Mountain or Cavalry Mountain or whatever it was,
supposedly that was where they buried people too, So they
were saying that could be code for a mass grave
where they would have buried people, which would suggest a
mass death that happened in a short period of time. Man,
(35:02):
can you imagine if there was a discovery made of
children's bones in a mountains somewhere north of Hamlin to
be neat nor because it's mountains, I just think that
means they're north. So one more you keep bringing up
this awesome stuff, dude, you ready, I'm ready. They recently
discovered I think they discovered it a while back, but
(35:22):
they recently publicized that the discovery of a and believe
it was. It was definitely in Peru. It wasn't Incan.
It was one of the Incan's rivals, the Inca rivals Um.
But it was a mass sacrifice of hundreds of kids
that all happened on one day, one after the other.
(35:43):
It was and like they found this and you're reading it,
and you're like, this probably has never happened in the
history of the world anything like this, Nothing like this.
I mean this they were probably child side or they
were definitely child sacrifices, but they would do it like
once in a while or something. But imagine a town
gone that berserk that they just let their kids, Like
(36:04):
hundreds of kids just killed in a day in one area.
It was. It's really rough, man, it's but reading about it,
it's I mean, it's just too you can't help but
pull yourself back into that day and just see it
and want to be like, stop, what are you doing?
You've lost your mind? You know. And if it happened once,
it could happen again. I guess you know, maybe the
(36:25):
parents were all uh, maybe they all drank bad beer
one day. Yeah, it made him temporarily insane. That'd be
really bad. It sounds like a a Blumhouse movie to Come.
What is that? It's just that production company that makes
a lot of the horror movies. Now what like what
I think they did get out among many others? Good? Okay,
(36:48):
you've got anything else? Now I got nothing else, Jerry, No, okay. Well,
if you want to know more about the pie Piper
and all that stuff, you can type that word in
the search bar how stuff works dot com. And since
I said that, it's time the listener mail. I'm gonna
call this a double Keen Signeta reply because you heard
from a couple of people with some good insight. First, Alexandra,
(37:11):
longtime listener from San Juan, Puerto Rico, loved episode on
Kensaneta's It's usual. You did a great job approaching a
cultural tradition but it's not your own, while providing a
balanced information, well rounded and textualization of the celebration and
its influence. She's like in parnhses it was the opposite
of the episode. Oh man, we've gotten beat up about that.
(37:35):
For my own Keen Signetta, my mother gave me the
option of the traditional coming of age party or a trip.
What do you think she chose? I'm guessing a trip yeah,
I chose to travel and spent a month in Germany
this summer I turned fifteen. Looking back, it's amazing that
she trusted me enough at such a young age travel
on my own, although I did stay with family. She's like,
(37:56):
it's the greatest regret of my young life. I wish
I would have partied. Uh. I just wanted to clarify
a few things you brought up. Um, l A T
I n X is pronounced, she says, Latin X. Uh.
It refers to those from Latin America or Latin American descent.
Hispanic refers to Spanish speaking persons. Oh and your pronunciation
(38:16):
of kintanana was great, as the r a is a
soft our sound. Um, no need to read this on
the podcast, sorry, Alexandra. Uh. And then this other follow
up I want this guy says, this is tiban Plinsky.
I recognize that name. I think he's on Twitter or something.
Oh really, yeah, great name. He's local, is she said? Disclaimer,
(38:39):
I'm a white person from Georgia, so I have no
authority here at all, but we'll be referring to the
opinions of actual Latino Latina Latin X people I know
or have read the writings of I personally only heard
that word pronounced with confidence in the following two ways,
latin X and latin X. However, some people say latin
(39:01):
X or latins Latino X sounds right because it's Latino
Latina latin X, Yeah, that makes sense, or LATINX rhymes
with sphinx Um. I don't think that's right, or something
else entirely, as evidenced by this Twitter poll and he
shared the Twitter poll, which was from a media brand
(39:22):
for Latino millennials. Interestingly, there appears to be backlash against
the term by some who view it as an attempt
intentional or not to anglicize Spanish. They say this is
part of a larger movement to paint Hispanic, Latino, Latina
latin X people as sexist and ignorant. Mexican American person
(39:42):
who introduced me to the term was still sorting out
their feelings about the whole situation. Uh so that's where
we step steps into uh taibon plinsky. Uh. If you
want to get in touch of this, like Tie and
Alexandra did, you can tweet to us. I'm josh Um
Clark and at s Y s K podcast and Chuck's
(40:03):
at movie Crush. You can join Chuck on Facebook at
Facebook dot com, slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and slash
Stuff you Should Know. You can send us all an email.
The Stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com and
has always joined us our home on the web, Stuff
you Should Know dot com. For more on this and
(40:24):
thousands of other topics, is it how stuff Works dot
com
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
dot Com. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there.
This is Stuff you Should Know fairy Tale Edition. Jerry
(00:21):
is supposedly on vacation. Yea, what's going on? But she
came in here just for us, Jerry. I think she
feels beholden. That's nice, which is weird because she's We've
had guest producers. I don't know. Maybe she feels like
her job is threatened. Is today the day I die? Oh? Jeesus?
Hoping Jerry knows it. Can't we at least get these
(00:42):
two in the can first? Yeah, well probably unless something
really crazy happens in the next hour and two. Yeah,
that'll give me time to get in touch with like
the five people I have on my list to replace you.
I know, the five Bano right, Obama? Right, Michael Stipe,
Michael Stipe, Bobby Fisher. I think there was one more.
(01:05):
I can't remember, Bobby Fisher, the chess player. Yeah, that's
a little random. Well, I want to correct that episode
and Optimus Prime that's the fifth one, that's right, yea. Uh, Chuckers.
Have you ever heard of fairy Tale before? Yeah? We
uh we did two very good episodes. Oh, if you
(01:25):
say so yourself. No, these were good. I don't often
say that, but in November of two thousand fifteen, we
did it back to backer with the dark origins of
fairy tales and how the Grimm's fairy tales work or
the grand Brothers. We had fairy tale fever. We did,
but man, we licked it. So did you go back
and listen to them and you're like, wow, these are
(01:45):
good or you just remember them being good. I remember
them being good, okay, and being especially kind of proud
of those too. Really, that's fantastic. That's how I feel
about your limb is torn off? Now? What? That was
a good one good title about reattachment surgery. Remember that? Yeah?
I think that that titles all you. That's a Josh
Clark title. You've got some good titles out there too.
(02:09):
What's the deal with blank? You know who's really good
at coming up with titles? Bono? Yeah, where the streets
have no name? Right? Where the where the streets have
no drums? M dude, you just did it. So we're
talking about fairy tales today, specifically, specifically, we're talking about
(02:29):
the fairy tale of the Pie Piper of Hamlin, And
as far as fairy tales go, it seems to be
a little different than other fairy tales. And the reason
why it's a little different is because, horrifically it's people
think scholars, not just you know, average truck like, real
(02:51):
deal scholars think that something actually happened that formed the
basis of this fairy tale. Right Whereas with Hansel and
Gretel it wasn't based on some witchy lady who ate children, No,
but that one might have had some basis in fact too.
How about like rumpel Stiltskin, probably not based in fact? Right?
(03:13):
You remember the little guy who, like you, trick him
into saying his own name back? The little I don't
think he had a big heart. He had an insatiable
sexual appetite, is what it was. Oh, the little girls.
The big heart was Bono, right man. We're gonna get
so many emails from people being like, layoff Bono. What's
what's with the bono references? Who's Bono? They must work
(03:36):
with that Bono guy? I wish so chuck Um the
pie Piper. The reason why we say it might be
based in fact is because there's actual, like historic evidence
that kind of supports this thing, and you can find
it in this town of Hamlin, which is a real place.
It's not a made up like fairy tale land. Like
(03:56):
you knows your first clue. Yeah, most fair detales are
not set in an actual place, right, I don't know,
are they know? They're just made up, or they're in
a very vague place, or they take place in a
larger place like oh, in Germany one day, or in
Bavaria one day, not like in this town that actually
(04:18):
existed at the time we're saying it did. Which is
another thing too, because if you look at the actual
fairy tales we'll get to in a second, there's like
a specific date that also is very unusual for their tale.
So the more you dig into it, the more you're like, yeah,
this might have actually happened. And then what you think, oh,
this might have actually happened, then you're struck with some
(04:41):
of the greatest dread human being can experience, because it's
something bad happened, is what happened? Let's talk about it,
all right, Well, let's get into the original fairy tale,
The Grimm's Brothers Tale of the Pipe Piper. Not even
Irish um. Jane McGrath, good old Jane from back in
(05:06):
the day wrote this one, and she points out that
it is a tale, a cautionary tale about governance as
well as taking responsibility for financial agreements. She's right, but
it putting it that way, it seems a little funny.
But it is twelve eighty four in Hamlin in Germany,
and there was a rat infestation in the town at
(05:28):
the time, and the mayor and this is the fairy tale,
you're gonna right, yeah, yeah, And so that the mayor
of the town didn't know what to do. The burgermeister,
Oh yeah, maister Burger. Uh, the stranger comes into town
and war and I didn't know what pid even meant.
I didn't either. What is it? Multi colored? Yeah, he
(05:49):
wore multi colored clothes, pied multi colored clothes. That's all
he was. He was a piper who wore colorful clothing.
Had nothing to do with eating pies or I thought
walk king on his feet, you know, he thought that's
what it meant. Yeah, why because I think like a
like pedestrian comes from pied p well, but I think
(06:11):
it's like maybe Italian or something that certainly makes more
sense than me having no clue. Yeah, but I was
way off, so it doesn't matter. He walked. He did walk.
That was the other reason I thought that too. So
his outfit looked a little weird. Apparently multicolored people didn't
dress like that. I reckon. I saw though that it
was also like um, like a splendid outfit that he
(06:36):
attracted a lot of attention, and people were like, I
wish I could, I wish I had the Cohonans dressed
like you pie piper dance around with a band. Uh.
And he had a called it a musical pipe or
some kind of flute, not a smoking pipe. Heads no uh.
And he hears about this rat problem. He comes into town.
(06:57):
He drags his fingernails along the chalkboard and gets everyone attention,
and the down meeting says, I'll kill that shark. Oh,
you gotta do it, but no, no, no, I'll kill
the rats. Yeah, but in the voice, I can't do
quint well, whatever, you can do anything. You're like the
rich little of this this company. Jerry's laughing at us
for no reason. She's so sick of this man, she's
(07:20):
really tickled today, Jerry, are you stoned? No, she's been
smoking her own magical pipe. So they agree on a
price to get rid of the rats. Piper takes out
his his little his little hand flute. Yeah, yeah, I
don't know if that's what's called. But the price is important.
Can I go into the price for a second. So
he initially said that he would get rid of the
(07:41):
rats for a thousand florins, which is either coins or
money from Italy or France or the Netherlands, but money
a thousand a lot of the time, thousand pieces of money.
And this this town of Hamlin was so overrun by rats.
Apparently all their cats had died. Though yes they got
they beat the cats. I didn't see explained what happened
(08:04):
to the cats, just that the cats died, and that's
why the town is over rung. Okay, which is a
weird little thing, don't you think. Yeah, because my first
thing was like, why a pie piper just get some cats?
The cats had all died, all right, good thinking, chuck um.
But they they say a thousand florins will give you
fifty thousand florins if you get rid of these rats.
Our problem is so bad, and he says done. But
(08:25):
was that a facetious offer? I think it was a
desperate a desperate boast. Okay, But the pipe piper was like,
all right, I'll agree to your terms. I just wanted
a thousand, but fifty thousand it is, and they went
I think we ever spent. I regret saying that. You
should hear the guy. So he pulls out the instrument
he um starts playing. As the story goes, all the
(08:48):
rats congregate around him, and he leaps about and dances
through town into the Weser River, which the rats drowned,
which is complete um fabrication, because rats are very good swimmers.
They really are. I thought about that too. I even
looked it up. They're good swimmers, not just rats you've
seen it's rats in general. Yeah. I mean the first thing, honestly,
(09:11):
when I heard that, the first thing that made me
think that was like, wait a minute, first blood. He's
in that abandoned mind chat. Those rats are swimming all
over the place. So I looked it up. I was like,
is that true? And apparently rats are really good swimmers,
better than others. It's in there too, So this fairy
tale stinks of bs already, okay, But the the story
(09:32):
goes that the rats followed this guy in a trance
to the river, whereupon they drowned. Maybe they were in
the trance and that was why they couldn't swim, because
they were just so lulled by his his hand flute,
his smooth jazz. Should you take a break there and
finish the story after, Oh, it's quite a cliff banger.
All right, let's do that, all right, Chuck, We're back
(10:16):
to lay it on them. Man, that was that was
high class. Well, they drown all the rats. The pie
piper is successful. Everyone parties German style, which is to
say they probably got hammered on eight eight ounce beers.
Have you ever been to Germany? You ever had the
beers there? The big Yeah? I mean they've got big
old beers there for sure. And they have lids on
(10:38):
their their mugs too, because you know, there's so much
of it you can just set it down, save it
for later. But I don't think they save it for later.
The beer garden I went too did not have the lids.
Maybe I've just seen in those on TV. But what
they did have was a four and a half foot
tall woman with popeye sized four arms, carrying six of
(11:01):
those giants, like like a pro, not like a bro.
They were pros well too. It's probably sold to the
beer garden at a young age and was raised. Please
tell me that's not the case. Um alright, so, uh
where are we? Townspeople are partying? They're they're getting hammered,
they're singing, they're they're they're prosting, singing your German beer
(11:23):
hall uh songs as they are one to do. And
then dude says, uh, what's up with that? All those florins? Yeah,
he's like, everybody, I'm really glad you enjoyed my work,
but now it's time for me to go pay me.
And did they just stiff them or did they say, well,
let's go back to the thousand. Uh, they said, we're
(11:46):
not giving you fifty thousand florins. What you We thought
you were going to get rid of these rets through
hard work. You just played some flute, Like that's cool
that you can do that with the flute, but that's
not really work. So no, we're not gonna pay you
fifty thousand florence. He's like, well, in a thousand florins
at least that's what I originally agreed to. And they're like,
how about this. We're gonna give you fifty and if
(12:07):
you're not happy with that, then you're getting nothing. And
he was still so mad that they're like, fine, nothing,
get out of town. And he says, you will regret
you know what that's like. That's like highering the critter
remover because you have a raccoon in your attic. You
agree to a price. He comes over and shoots the
raccoon and says game over, and you're like, wait a minute.
(12:29):
I expected a little more like uh, like you were
going to hypnotize him or or coax him down from
the roof with your smooth jazz. Right, not just shoot it.
Anybody could shoot it. I thought you're gonna like step
on it or something. Yeah, Like I would have shot it.
Looking for a peaceful, less solution right in place, I
have a bullet hole in my house. Now have you
(12:49):
ever had to call one of those people a raccoon remover? Well,
I'll just you know those dudes, just like you know,
I'll do snakes and raccoons or whatever. I haven't either,
but a lot of my friends do that. I'm over one.
I think I mentioned with cockroaches right now, and it's
just it's getting bad still, Yeah, dude, because I don't
know what to do. Hire an exterminator. Yeah, but we're
(13:12):
not into the poison stuff. But I think it's like,
we gotta do it. I think there's green exterminators that
are not quite as deadly. Jerry's nodding, But will they
kill all the cockroaches? Probably? Probably? You probably with their
magic flute, and I need to do something. It's gotten
out of hand. Yeah, you got to do something, like
(13:32):
I almost I'm gonna tell you what happens, but I
feel like people judge me on how disgusting it is.
We can always edit it out later, all right. I'll
go in and and this is not like it's not
like food is out. I will clean the kitchen. I
will go in there to get a glass of water.
At midnight, I'll turn the light on and a dozen
will scatter. Jerry's geting, Nope, like I will just I
(13:56):
will hear them going, sure, Yeah, that's one of the
creepiest things. And they you know, as soon as they
see that light, they're gone. And it sounds like we
live in filth. But it doesn't matter. We're infested. They're
just like, I don't know what to do. Yeah, well, um,
I think you may want to call an exterminator, but fine,
one you live into cator. I'm sure you'd be hard
(14:16):
pestifind an exterminator that did use deadly You throw a
rock indicator and you'll hit a dust So I yes,
I think it might be time. All right, Sorry about
getting sidetracks so much. They offer him, what fifty fifty
not even not fifty thou or a thousand fifty? And
so what does he say? He says, but he did
(14:39):
that little everybody. You can't see me, but you know
where you flick the underside of your chain, that feel
like that's Italian? Well, I mean this is Germany, it's
Lower Saxony. It wasn't too far from Germany. But is
that Italian? I was just wondering. Yeah, it feels like
a very like Italian thing to do. Yeah, okay, right exactly.
You gotta say it like that, all right. So he
gives him that number and says I'm gonna come back.
(15:02):
Does he even warn them and say I'm gonna come
back and get your kids or I'm just gonna it
depends on it's all good, you'll see me again. It
depends on the story. Some say, yeah, he vowed vengeance.
Some say he came back a month later. Some say
he came back a year later. Some say he just
immediately started playing his flute. Some say, and I think
the brothers grim version is that he waited until the
(15:22):
town went to sleep, and then came through the town
and started playing again. All right, but this time he's
wearing Hunter's clothing. Did not see that anywhere? Oh? Really
does that? Bs? Well? I don't think it's b S.
I think this story has just been added to so
many times over there. But yeah, I shouldn't have ever
been to anything. All right, So he comes back regardless
(15:43):
of what he's wearing. Let's say he's buck naked, which
makes it even more fun. Well, you just added to
the legend just there. He starts playing this flute again,
but this time the children are entranced. He leads like
a hundred and thirty kids supposedly, Yeah, paying attention to
a number. It seems a little specific, doesn't it does.
He leads a hundred and thirty children out of town
(16:04):
up a mountain to a cave. They supposedly enter and
are never heard from again, right, And the mountain has
a landslide and covers up the cave mouth, and supposedly
it was a magical door that opened in the mountain
that revealed the key. They go in, doors closed, landslide gone,
(16:25):
never heard from again, like you said, And the townspeople
are like, there goes our labor pool, there goes my baby,
there goes their labor pool. Who's going to service at
the beer gardens? And supposedly there in one version, at
least um there was the mayor's grown daughter was among
that group, and this feels like a specific jab at
(16:46):
the mayor, like even though your daughter's grown, I'm gonna
and transfer with my flute as well. Yeah, well I
don't think that was in the original Grand Brothers one either,
But but two children survived correct or they come back,
I think. And the Grimm Brothers version is just one.
Sometimes it's up to three. But there there's in a
lot of retellings, there's a kid who either Um is
(17:09):
deaf and so can't hear the magic flute song, so
it's not entranced. Um has some sort of physical disability,
and so he or she can't keep up with the
rest of the kids and survives from that um or
I think it's blind and can't see their way. Either way,
some kid who had some unique characteristic that kept them
(17:33):
from being um entranced or whatever. Uh is like the
eyewitness that comes back and tells the parents what happened,
or in another version, is just a skeptic child skeptic.
This can't be happening. Louis the child's skipt um. That's funny.
(17:55):
So all right, so let's get into this. It may
not to be fictions, as it turns out, because a
lot of historians and scholars have looked into this. You
talked about the specificity being a little weird. One thing
we do know is that at one point there was
a stained glass window in the in the town church
um that depicted and this was what around thirteen hundreds
(18:18):
is after it would have happened, but I mean sixteen
years in memory, living memory, it was when they first
erected that window, which kind of makes sense as a memorial. Uh.
And on that window it said on the day of
John Paul, I'm sorry John and Paul. One thirty children
in Hamlin went to Calvary were brought through all kinds
(18:39):
of danger to the copin mountain and lost. Yeah. So
the Calvary thing that I thought was another word for Heaven,
isn't it. I'm gone, I'm going to Calvary in that
was like in that like the hill where was crucified.
If I know this, surely you know used to know this.
(19:01):
I know it looms large and and Christianity, but I
can't remember exactly. I think it's like shorthand for I'm
going to meet my maker. I saw elsewhere that they
referred to the mountain as cavalry. Yeah. They also referred
to the area that the children went to Calvary as
the execution place. I never saw any explanation of that.
(19:21):
And then the copp And Mountain. I don't understand why
that would be also named Calvary, and they would mention
at the same place twice with two different names. So
it's a bit of a mystery. But the point is,
about fifteen sixteen years after this event supposedly happened, or
the fairy tale takes place, the town of Hamlin, Germany
in um Lower Saxony or West Falley, I think is
(19:45):
what it's called now, put put up of stained glass
window commemorating this and the window did not survive, but
apparently there are accounts of that window, yeah, like in
more than one place. Yeah, and it was I mean
you can understand that it would be because it was
in the town church for hundreds of years before it
was destroyed. No one knows how it was destroyed, but
there is documentation that this window existed. Obviously, no living
(20:09):
historians saw it with their own eyes, but there's enough,
um documentary evidence that it seems to be. Yes, there
was a window that was erected in That is a
very weird thing to do to just make up right,
very weird, um, especially in the church. Yeah, you don't
why you go to hell for that? So that was
(20:31):
that was the first documentary evidence, right. The next one
I saw comes a hundred years later in four and
um it's in the Hamlin Town Chronicle for that year,
and all it says is it is one hundred years
since our children left. Yeah. Kind of weird. And what
is that just a blurb? I guess so you'd think
(20:53):
a hundred year commemoration they might add a little more
than that. Yeah, and what is this the Luneberg Manu's
script This was about a hundred years after the window.
And this was a monk who wrote it, Heinrich of Hereford,
and he says, he writes an account and says a
man about thirty years old came to town playing a
(21:14):
flute and lead the children out. Yeah, pretty simple. Yeah,
but what's noteworthy about that one. There's a couple of things. Um,
So the the piper doesn't show up in the first
in the window, right, but he does show up in
the Lumberg manuscript. He mentions the piper. But no rats
(21:37):
in any of these, right, not yet. But the other
thing about the Lumberg manuscript is that it Looomberg is
a nearby town. So there are other towns that are
talking about this event that happened in their own chronicles. Right,
it was one of the reasons why. But it supports
the idea that it's real, because if it's just this
one town that's deluded, even if other towns are talking
(22:00):
about it, they'll probably be by the way, they're all nuts.
But other towns chronicles seemed to be verifying that this
happened or recounting this story in like a credulous way.
So something happened in twelve eighty four, and the evidence
is starting to mount. Um. But the other thing about
the fact that this is another town is that this
town Loomburg and other towns. Um cited that Hambling came
(22:24):
to be known to commemorate things counting backward or forward
from the date of twelve eighty four. So, for example,
they put up a gate in fifteen fifty six in
the town. This is what they inscribed on the gate,
chuck uh In this year of fifteen fifty six, two
(22:45):
hundred and seventy two years after the magician led a
hundred and thirty children out of the town, this portal
was erected. That's like saying, like this, we're putting up
the sewer two hundred and sixty two years after our
children were led out of town by a magician. Enjoy
the sewer. Like, that's a weird thing to inscribe in something.
And apparently the town became known for that kind of thing.
(23:08):
What just these random inscriptions about this weird, like mysterious event. Yeah,
just like dating everything from twelve eighty four on based
on their their children leaving. And again you'll notice it
mentions a hundred and thirty children. Things changed over the retelling.
But the one thing that's remained the same is the
hundred and thirty children leaving. Even before the piper shows
(23:31):
up in the story, a hundred and thirty children are
cited each and every time. Yeah, but in what we
don't know is that, like some symbolic things, that all metaphor. Um.
Should we take a break and get to the theories,
all right, let's do that, all right. The theories are varied, Um.
(24:13):
One of the common ones makes that makes a lot
of sense is that there was some disease that killed
all these kids, and then this story is some sort
of metaphor for what happened to their children. And the
fact that rats come into play at some point have
led people to speculate that it might be the bubonic plague. Yeah,
there's a guy named um, Count Froben Christoph von Zimmer.
(24:37):
Can you say it like that? Frob Now? I don't know,
but I know that that guy will steal your soul
in the middle of the night if you're not careful. Yeah, so,
Count Froben Christoph von Zimmer. You can only say all
of his names, You can't her. He wrote a chronicle
in five from another nearby town and he was the
(24:58):
one who seems to event produced the rats. And so
at that point the piper goes from just a weirdo
magician to ratt and fonger, Yeah, rat catcher, Yeah, which
was a job, it was, And I mean like like
this town would have had rats, Any town would have
had rats, So it would have been, like, it's understandable
like that the rats would come into it, and it's
(25:21):
not like that's just, you know, a totally outlandish addition
to the story. But the fact that it doesn't show
up until fifteen sixty five, and this has been documented
for hundreds of years up to that point, seems a
little fishy. And it certainly seems weird that it would
have been the plague because the play couldn't come around yet,
right right, And it also seems fishy that it doesn't
(25:42):
mention anything about adults and any sort of rat carrying
or diseased rat would it seems like it wouldn't just
affect kids. No, it doesn't make any sense, No, it doesn't.
But the idea that a hundred and thirty kids were
taken from the town in one four or fashion, you
could say, well, it's like some sort of disease. One
(26:05):
of the other diseases that got um put up was
Parkinson's I believe or no, Huntington's I'm sorry, which is
a stupid theory. It's a terrible theory. Huntington's disease is
an inherited disease, so that would mean that every kid
in the town had inherited Huntington's from their parents, who
apparently weren't showing any symptoms. I don't know, I couldn't
(26:27):
find it, but it's a terrible one. And then the
idea that so it's not infectious, it's rare, and everybody's
symptoms coming on at the same time in dying. The
reason why they said that, though, was because supposedly um
the shakes from it, the palsy, would account for the
dancing of the children. It seems like a pretty dumb
(26:50):
thing to zero in stretch Huntington disease were crossing off
the list all right. One of my favorites is that
the children left on their own as part of one
of the crusades. And apparently the one thing that doesn't
quite align is the timeline, because a few decades previous
there were in fact young people children probably teenagers, doctor
(27:13):
were like eight year old participating in the crusades, one
of them would have a vision from God and say,
you know, we should totally cover the crusades. I don't
think we have we done that? No, not yet. There's
a really good article on the site too, would be
it's a pretty dense single. Yeah, we might do too.
Two part are on the crusades coming. Uh, So you
(27:35):
would you know, one of those kids would have a
vision from God and then all the kids would follow
and say, all right, when we take our broadswords that
we can barely lift and go fight the good fight. Right.
So that's one theory, and that's actually a pretty uh
it's that that's a little more rooted in reality. Like, yes,
there were children's crusade before documented. It's possible it happened
(27:58):
a decade or two later. Like if if it was
in the area and well known, some other kid could
have been like, okay, let me try my hand at it,
changes his name to Jim Jones and says follow me
to Jerusalem. Right, So that that one could have happened.
It's possible. Um the other one, and this is supposedly
the most widely held theory. Chuck was that this is
(28:20):
all part of the oh sedlung o S. This is
a tongue twister O S T s I E D
l u n G, which is basically an exodus or
an eastward expansion from Germany to Transylvania, Romania area which
(28:42):
was being newly settled by um Western Europeans after conquering,
like the whole Dracula era. So the idea is an
adult came and said, hey, kids, why don't you come
with me and we'll we'll go like populate eastern Europe
pretty much right right, so um, and there is evidence
(29:03):
that this this did like this definitely happened, right, there
was a migration eastward. Um. And the big thing about
this one is that they were misinterpreting the word kids
or children that it could have been the town's children.
But it's like their their children, they weren't kids. They
were you know, young adults who were who would have
(29:24):
represented like, you know, a lot of the workforce. So
that would have been a big deal had they left.
So that's a that's I think the most widely held
one right now. Well, one of the traditions you're hanging
onto is uh and I kind of teased it with
that dumb bano jerk jerk, poor Bono, he's like that
(29:46):
bono joke earlier is uh today still Um. The street
where this supposedly all happened, um is called the bungalowsan
Sasa street with no drum, street without drums, And to
this day they won't allow people to play music or
dance on that street. Right, the rest of the town
(30:07):
and including that street, but really the rest of the
town is the whole town is dedicated to this legend. Um.
I thought you dedicated to music and dancing. Well, I'm
except for the street they do. There is a musical
called Rats that's put on in the town seriously, um.
And there's there's like a pie piper statue and recreations
(30:28):
every Sunday in the summer. Oh yeah, it's huge tourist
town for this. Um. There's like a I think a
Rats blug cocktails that they serve. I saw. It's like
a mental falss article. I mentioned that. But Um, the
town is dedicated to this. But there's there's the fact
that they're still talking about it is not just legend,
(30:49):
it's um. It's like they're they're still telling that story
to an extent, you know what I mean, keeping it alive,
not just for tourist dollars because it looms large because
this is their ancestry. Well, they definitely, Um. There are
some more um theories that haven't gained as much traction,
(31:10):
Like there was a pedophile that came. Um, these children
were just maybe just simply sent away because they're very poor.
Because that happened. That's my theory that that was just
sort of the regular thing that would happen. Is we're
also poor, you go away and live a better life somewhere. Yeah,
And that's where Hansel and Gretel is kind of rooted
in reality, the idea of child abandonment. Remember we talked
(31:31):
about that. I believe in the in one of the
fairy Tale episodes from before that like if you fell
on hard times, just taking your kid out to the
woods and being like, best of luck. It was a
viable thing to do during the Middle Ages. And it's
possible that this town, basically said it would be like
a combination of the guy coming from Romania and saying
(31:52):
follow me, and the parents being like, maybe you should
go with him, And then that would explain why the
whole thing is written in like such vague, flowery language.
To me, that indicates that they're they're working out guilt.
There's guilt by this town vague. They're not direct. Other
(32:12):
towns are talking about this legend in much more explicit terms,
But in the town of Hamlin, it's all very like
like flowery and and poetic and vague, And it makes
me think they're they're covering something up that they have
to get off their chest, but they're still they can't
bring themselves to actually say what it was. Well, that
(32:33):
sort of jibes then with um, this dude, he's a
children's poet named Michael Rosen. He sent that one article.
He actually went to Hamlin and hooked up with a
guy named Michael Boyer from the tourism office there, and
Boyer says that he thinks the rats were added and
this this makes sense with your theory. Was that just
(32:55):
sort of an attempt to wash away what he said,
we're bad memories, like a ever up to draw attention
away from this awful thing. They're like, hey, let's tell
this rat story, right, But if you'll notice also in
that story with the rats there there is guilt by
the town. The town is guilty of something and they
(33:15):
lose their children as a result. So if the rats
were actually part of the original story, even if it
wasn't documented, even if there weren't real rats, it still
is putting some veneer of guilt onto the town. It
wasn't something that just happened to them. This thing befell
them because they did something wrong. I don't I feel
like there could be a deeper mystery though, Yeah, I
(33:37):
think there is. Like, for real, I think there's something
really happened in Hamlin in twelve eighty four and they
lost a hundred and thirty kids somehow, and the town
it was psychically damaged by it. Are you going to
title this one pie Piper colon cold case? That's a
good one. Actually not? Okay, you got anything else? No?
(33:58):
Now I want to know more. I know I got
sucked into this. I can't remember which of the articles
I sent it got me, but I don't remember how
I came across it, but it was it was like, oh,
I've never thought of this, And it's not like you
can do this with every um fairy tale. Right there's
you know, there's there's probably no rapondola and probably no
(34:20):
rumple Stiltskin, Hansel and Gretel's just so vague. Probably happened
to multiple children, but this one, this happened in Hamlin
in twelve eighty four. Something happened. We may never know
what it was, but it's pretty interesting. My mind goes
really dark and thinks, like, what if there was just
a mass murder? Well, one more thing, one more thing.
(34:40):
I'm glad you brought that up. So the execution place
that the Coppin Mountain or Cavalry Mountain or whatever it was,
supposedly that was where they buried people too, So they
were saying that could be code for a mass grave
where they would have buried people, which would suggest a
mass death that happened in a short period of time. Man,
(35:02):
can you imagine if there was a discovery made of
children's bones in a mountains somewhere north of Hamlin to
be neat nor because it's mountains, I just think that
means they're north. So one more you keep bringing up
this awesome stuff, dude, you ready, I'm ready. They recently
discovered I think they discovered it a while back, but
(35:22):
they recently publicized that the discovery of a and believe
it was. It was definitely in Peru. It wasn't Incan.
It was one of the Incan's rivals, the Inca rivals Um.
But it was a mass sacrifice of hundreds of kids
that all happened on one day, one after the other.
(35:43):
It was and like they found this and you're reading it,
and you're like, this probably has never happened in the
history of the world anything like this, Nothing like this.
I mean this they were probably child side or they
were definitely child sacrifices, but they would do it like
once in a while or something. But imagine a town
gone that berserk that they just let their kids, Like
(36:04):
hundreds of kids just killed in a day in one area.
It was. It's really rough, man, it's but reading about it,
it's I mean, it's just too you can't help but
pull yourself back into that day and just see it
and want to be like, stop, what are you doing?
You've lost your mind? You know. And if it happened once,
it could happen again. I guess you know, maybe the
(36:25):
parents were all uh, maybe they all drank bad beer
one day. Yeah, it made him temporarily insane. That'd be
really bad. It sounds like a a Blumhouse movie to Come.
What is that? It's just that production company that makes
a lot of the horror movies. Now what like what
I think they did get out among many others? Good? Okay,
(36:48):
you've got anything else? Now I got nothing else, Jerry, No, okay. Well,
if you want to know more about the pie Piper
and all that stuff, you can type that word in
the search bar how stuff works dot com. And since
I said that, it's time the listener mail. I'm gonna
call this a double Keen Signeta reply because you heard
from a couple of people with some good insight. First, Alexandra,
(37:11):
longtime listener from San Juan, Puerto Rico, loved episode on
Kensaneta's It's usual. You did a great job approaching a
cultural tradition but it's not your own, while providing a
balanced information, well rounded and textualization of the celebration and
its influence. She's like in parnhses it was the opposite
of the episode. Oh man, we've gotten beat up about that.
(37:35):
For my own Keen Signetta, my mother gave me the
option of the traditional coming of age party or a trip.
What do you think she chose? I'm guessing a trip yeah,
I chose to travel and spent a month in Germany
this summer I turned fifteen. Looking back, it's amazing that
she trusted me enough at such a young age travel
on my own, although I did stay with family. She's like,
(37:56):
it's the greatest regret of my young life. I wish
I would have partied. Uh. I just wanted to clarify
a few things you brought up. Um, l A T
I n X is pronounced, she says, Latin X. Uh.
It refers to those from Latin America or Latin American descent.
Hispanic refers to Spanish speaking persons. Oh and your pronunciation
(38:16):
of kintanana was great, as the r a is a
soft our sound. Um, no need to read this on
the podcast, sorry, Alexandra. Uh. And then this other follow
up I want this guy says, this is tiban Plinsky.
I recognize that name. I think he's on Twitter or something.
Oh really, yeah, great name. He's local, is she said? Disclaimer,
(38:39):
I'm a white person from Georgia, so I have no
authority here at all, but we'll be referring to the
opinions of actual Latino Latina Latin X people I know
or have read the writings of I personally only heard
that word pronounced with confidence in the following two ways,
latin X and latin X. However, some people say latin
(39:01):
X or latins Latino X sounds right because it's Latino
Latina latin X, Yeah, that makes sense, or LATINX rhymes
with sphinx Um. I don't think that's right, or something
else entirely, as evidenced by this Twitter poll and he
shared the Twitter poll, which was from a media brand
(39:22):
for Latino millennials. Interestingly, there appears to be backlash against
the term by some who view it as an attempt
intentional or not to anglicize Spanish. They say this is
part of a larger movement to paint Hispanic, Latino, Latina
latin X people as sexist and ignorant. Mexican American person
(39:42):
who introduced me to the term was still sorting out
their feelings about the whole situation. Uh so that's where
we step steps into uh taibon plinsky. Uh. If you
want to get in touch of this, like Tie and
Alexandra did, you can tweet to us. I'm josh Um
Clark and at s Y s K podcast and Chuck's
(40:03):
at movie Crush. You can join Chuck on Facebook at
Facebook dot com, slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and slash
Stuff you Should Know. You can send us all an email.
The Stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com and
has always joined us our home on the web, Stuff
you Should Know dot com. For more on this and
(40:24):
thousands of other topics, is it how stuff Works dot
com
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