Which grimm fairy tale is about rats

Whatever happened, the fact remains that a large group of Children from the town of Hamelin did go missing in the late s.. The event was memorialized in a stained glass window that was installed in the 13th century it was since destroyed.

And again in the 16th century when a new gate was built for the city wall, it was inscribed with these words. This is the road that the children took while following the Pied Piper.

In the dialect of medieval Hameln, a Bunge was a drum. If you show up in town any day from May to September, you will find an Altstadt completely taken over by references to the Pied Piper!

I was astonished by all of the stuffed rats, wooden rats and candy rats available for the tourists to buy. There are daily performances by Pipers in the streets… and Plays with children dressed in rat costumes reenacting the tale. And every day, at , and pm, the 29 bell carillon high in the Hochzeitshaus on Market Square play the Pied Piper theme while wooden figures come out from behind iron doors to act out the story.

Why the odd time? Hameln has an astonishingly well preserved Altstadt. Because it was an independent city-state for years from and a member of the Hanseatic League, it became quite a wealthy city. Your email address will not be published.

Grimm Wiki Explore. TV Series. Blutbad Fuchsbau Hexenbiest More. Ghost Demon Spirit Elemental. Portland Police Bureau Purewelt Orden. Portland, Oregon Vienna, Austria. Grimm Human. Portland Police Bureau. And staying some dayes in Town, on a Sunday morning at high Mass, when most People were at Church, he fell to play on his Pipes, and the Children, up and down, followed him out of the Town to a great hill not far off, which rent in two, and opened, and let him and the Children in, and so closed up again.

This happened about years since. And in that Town they date their Bills and Bonds, and other Instruments in Law, to this day from the year of trheir going out of their Children. Besides, there is a great pillar of stone erected, at the foot of said hill, where this Story is ingraven.

The Magic Fife Germany Ages ago there was a great lake in the vicinity of Lorsch now marked by the district of Seehof. The surrounding villages were once hit by an evil plague: a rain of ants so thick that the fields were crawling with the insects. Within a few days not a single green blade could be seen. In their need the inhabitants turned to the Bishop of Worms, hoping that through his prayers and blessings the plague might be overcome. The bishop advised them to form a procession through the fields while beseeching God to overcome the plague.

This they did. When the procession paused at a field altar near the lake a hermit joined their ranks, saying, "The Lord has sent me to you, and if you promise to do what I say then all the ants will immediately die.

Every village struck by the plague must give me one hundred guilders with which I shall build a chapel to the Lord. The ants all flew toward him, darkening the sky. They soon formed a black tower before the hermit, who with a final sound from his fife sunk them all into the lake.

When the hermit came to the local authorities asking for God's payment they shouted that he was a sorcerer and deserved to be burned. This happened in all ten villages, but that did not frighten him. He told them sharply that they soon would receive their punishment. Approaching the last house in the last village he took his fife from his robe and began blowing on it. And behold, the hogs from the entire region broke loose from their pens and followed the hermit, who proceeded back through the ten villages.

No one dared to say a word against him. Thus he led the herd of hogs to the lake where he disappeared with them. The next year a rain of crickets devastated the entire region. The peasants now recognized how great their sin had been, and again they turned to the Bishop of Worms for advice, but he wanted nothing more to do with them. Once again they formed a procession through the fields trying through prayer to redeem themselves from heaven's anger.

When they arrived at the lake a charcoal burner approached them from the mountains. Bowing, he said to them all, "The punishment that has befallen you shall be removed if you will promise that every village shall pay to me five hundred guilders for the construction of a monastery.

With that the charcoal burner took a small fife from his bag and blew into it. The crickets immediately rose up and followed him to Tannenberg Mountain, where a gigantic fire consumed them all. When the charcoal burner came for God's payment he was not treated any better in the ten villages than had been the hermit.

He did not receive a single red penny. No one dared say anything. Then he advanced to the lake, where he disappeared with the herd. The following year came with a horde of mice, as though they had rained down from heaven. Plagued anew, the peasants penitently prayed once again and sorrowfully passed through their fields.

When the procession reached the lake a little dwarf suddenly appeared in their midst. He said, "I will take away this plague immediately, but in return each village must pay me one thousand guilders. If you won't give your money for the love of God, then at least do so for your own benefit.

With this money I shall build for you a dike from the mountain road of Hendesheim Handschuhsheim near Heidelberg to Ramstadt so that the mountain floods will no longer damage your fields. Equally fast the yellow dwarf raised his fife, and mice by the millions followed its sound.

They all advanced to Tannenberg Mountain, which opened up, and when it closed again, there was no trace of either the dwarf or the mice. But thanklessness is the world's reward, and the dwarf did not fare any better than had the charcoal burner or the hermit. He too responded with punishment, and what a punishment it was! When he once again played on his fife all the children followed him; even infants pulled themselves from their mothers' breasts and toddled along after him.

When the procession reached Tannenberg Mountain a great opening appeared. The dwarf and the children went inside, and the cliff closed up again, leaving no trace of the children. The bereaved peasants, not wanting to invite a new curse on themselves the following year, quickly raised the money and sent it to the Bishop of Worms. From that time onward they have experienced no more such plagues. Schmerber'schen Buchhandlung, , pp. Source Internet Archive : J.

The city had by that time expanded substantially, but many of its buildings lay buried in rubble. Vermin, especially rats, multiplied beneath the ruins of the destroyed buildings until no cellar and no food storage room was safe from their devastation. Neither cats, nor traps, nor poison could bring them under control, and the city's inhabitants felt forced to flee. A public meeting of the town council was held to decide once and for all whether to attempt continued but futile resistance against the animals or to simply abandon one's belongings, which in truth were no longer belongings at all.

There were spirited arguments back and forth when suddenly and unexpectedly a man stepped before the judge's bench and stated that he possessed the means to put an end to the city's plague. No one knew him, but his offer was accepted with loud acclaim. Everyone looked forward with fond anticipation to the next morning, when the promised rescue was to take place. In return for his deed the rescuer was to be paid a large sum of money. As the cock crowed the man did indeed enter at the gate.

He was wearing an unusual hunting outfit and carrying a very large hunter's bag. He pulled from the bag a small black transverse flute, upon which he played mournful melodies. Hoards of rats and mice followed the flute's sound, emerging in great masses from their holes in every corner of every house in the city. They followed the flute player, who walked directly toward the Danube. There he stepped into a boat and -- continuing to play the flute -- rode to the middle of the stream. Irresistibly attracted to the music, the rats attempted to swim after him, but they all drowned in the river's raging current.

Thus Korneuburg was saved. My name is Hans Mousehole, and I am the official rat killer of Magdalenengrund [a former suburb of Vienna, now part of the Mariahilf district]. Are you in league with the Evil One? Now see here, there is no obligation to keep one's word with black magicians or kobolds, so just take your leave, or we will turn you over to a witches' court. But hear me out. You have no right to question the means by which I saved your city from the plague.

It is sufficient that it is free. I have no intention of allowing myself to be chased out of your city, and I am even less inclined to reveal to you the inner workings of my deeds, which seemed so miraculous to you.

Take note that there are not merely evil, but also good higher powers. I used the latter to do good for you, for good things can come only from that which is good.

But if you ungrateful people cheat me out of my well earned pay then you will come to know the evil powers as well. Thus take heed of my final word. In your city there is a recess in the wall of the house not far from the church and at its right side. Place the payment we agreed upon there before the next dawn. If you fail to do so, I will find my own reward. With the sun's first rays Korneuburg experienced its own drama.

Hans Mousehole, dressed in a purple-red robe and playing a golden flute, stood at the marketplace in front of the town hall.

The melodious tunes that he evoked from his instrument must have sounded like music from heaven to the children, for they gathered about the mysterious musician with joyful haste. Still playing, he walked toward the Danube, where a large and handsome ship awaited him.

Led by the flute player, the procession boarded the ship. Its sails billowed, and it floated out to the middle of the stream. This time the ratcatcher did not return. To the contrary, the ship sailed further and further from the city, and neither it nor any who were aboard were ever seen there again.

Many years later the horrified citizens of Korneuburg received news that in that same year a large number of children had been placed up for sale in the slave markets of Constantinople.

They had no doubt that the children were theirs, and they rued their lack of honor, but too late. History has recorded that Korneuburg was freed of rats at the time stated above and by a ratcatcher from Vienna in the manner described.

On it could be seen an upright rat, a weathered gothic inscription, and the designation of a year, of which only the number IV could be made out. Also -- in remembrance of the event -- herdsmen from the area called their cattle and sheep together by cracking a whip instead of blowing on a cow horn.

Rats returned to the area with the great flood of Since then herdsmen have given their signals with a horn, as they had done ages ago. The story of the abducted children, which bears a close resemblance to the legend of the Ratcatcher of Hameln, is undoubtedly based on a factual event.

It may well be that during the sad times of the Thirty Years' War a flashy army piper enticed the city's youth into military service and led them away with him, and that none of the recruits returned, for they met death on the battlefield.

Source:Moritz Bermann [Albert A. Waldheim, , pp. Translated by D. Korneuburg is a city on the Danube River, 12 kilometers northwest of Vienna. Sleepy as it is now, it was once noisy enough, and what made the noise was -- rats. The place was so infested with them as to be scarce worth living in. There wasn't a barn or a corn-rick, a storeroom or a cupboard, but they ate their way into it. Not a cheese but they gnawed it hollow, not a sugar puncheon but they cleared out.

Why the very mead and beer in the barrels was not safe from them. They'd gnaw a hole in the top of the tun, and down would go one master rat's rail, and when he brought it up round would crowd all the friends and cousins, and each would have a suck at the tail. Had they stopped here it might have been borne. But the squeaking and shrieking, the hurrying and scurrying, so that you could neither hear yourself speak nor get a wink of good honest sleep the live-long night! Not to mention that mamma must needs sit up and keep watch and ward over baby's cradle, or there'd have been a big ugly rat running across the poor little fellow's face, and doing who knows what mischief.

Why didn't the good people of the town have cats? Well they did, and there was a fair stand-up fight, but in the end the rats were too many, and the pussies were regularly driven from the field. Why there wasn't a ratcatcher from John o' Groat's house to the Land's End that hadn't tried his luck. But do what they might, cats or poison, terrier or traps, there seemed to be more rats than ever, and every day a fresh rat was socking his tail or pricking his whiskers. The mayor and the town council were at their wits' end.

As they were sitting one day in the town hall racking their poor brains and bewailing their hard fate, who should run in but the town beadle. What happened to the missing children of Hamelin? Still the master seducer, the mesmerising rat-catcher is now leading a whole new trail of entranced followers — this time a conga line of historians each taking their own deep dive into the question of what exactly transpired in Hamelin on 26 June The theories are legion, according to Wibke Reimer, project coordinator at the Hameln Museum who has been organising a special exhibit that focuses on the global reach of the Pied Piper legend.

They were responsible for organising migrations to the east and were said to have worn colourful garments and played an instrument to attract the attention of possible settlers. The theory is also reinforced by evidence that the region, newly liberated from the Danes, was ripe for German colonisation.

More fanciful theories abound, too. And, in fact, one 13th Century outbreak — a literal form of dance fever — occurred south of Hamelin, in the town of Erfurt, where a group of youths were documented as wildly gyrating as they travelled out of town, ending up 20km away in a neighbouring town.

Some of the children, one chronicle suggests, expired shortly thereafter, having flat-out danced themselves to death, and those who survived were left with chronic tremors. Perhaps, some theorise, Hamelin witnessed a similar plague, dancing to the figurative tune of the Piper. But all these theories neglect one specific key to the Hamelin mystery. In fact, the date chronicled in all the local documentation pinpoint 26 June as the day the children disappeared.

This day is also the date of pagan midsummer celebrations.