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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm editor Candice Gibson, joined by staff writer Jane McGrath.

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Speaker 1: Hey there, Hey Jane. I have a question for you.

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Speaker 1: What was your favorite fairy tale growing up? Growing up?

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Speaker 1: I think it had to be Cinderella. Nice choice. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: what about you, snow whites. It's a good choice. I

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Speaker 1: like that definitely. I like I like the Disney baby

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Speaker 1: with her little bobbed dark hair cut. I think she

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Speaker 1: was the only Disney princess that I can think of

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Speaker 1: who had short hair. That was interesting. I never thought

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Speaker 1: about that. I love us Cinderella, like I guess because

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Speaker 1: of the whole magical enchanted mice and everything, which I

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Speaker 1: thought was hilarious when they didn't uh and enchanted If

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Speaker 1: you saw that with the real mice coming in and

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Speaker 1: trying to clean the apartment, Oh yeah, well you know,

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Speaker 1: rodents are really no laughing matter, as we will soon see.

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Speaker 1: But first, a little background on fairy tales. As most

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Speaker 1: of you probably know, fairy tales weren't always as light

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Speaker 1: and fluffy and bedtime story ish as they are today.

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Speaker 1: They started out with the Brothers Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm,

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Speaker 1: and they were pretty dark. And there's a very specific

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Speaker 1: reason for that, and that's that back when Jacob and

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Speaker 1: Wilhelm were around UM and the eighteen hundreds, they were

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Speaker 1: trying to do more of a historical and cultural thing

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Speaker 1: rather than a literary movement. When they recorded Germany's folklore.

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Speaker 1: This was not an initiative that they came up with

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Speaker 1: on their own. They had a friend who was compiling

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Speaker 1: a lot of um local Germanic tales, and they decided

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Speaker 1: that they would be sort of these cultural anthropologists and

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Speaker 1: go out and collect their own stories too. But their

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Speaker 1: friend was moving a little bit too slowly for their taste.

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Speaker 1: So by eighteen twelve they published a volume on their

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Speaker 1: own under the name Brothers Grim and it was called

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Speaker 1: Children's and Household Tales. This was really popular, right it was.

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Speaker 1: It was hugely popular, and at first the stories weren't

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Speaker 1: really geared toward children. It was again, like I said,

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Speaker 1: more of a matter of historical relevance and and writing

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Speaker 1: down German folklore. But they toned it down once they

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Speaker 1: saw how popular it was with children, and the reason

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Speaker 1: that they were trying to be so authentic in their

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Speaker 1: recording of these tales is that Napoleon was sweeping throughout

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Speaker 1: Europe at this time, and they really thought that Germany

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Speaker 1: would lose its identity if it wasn't recorded. And so

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Speaker 1: if you look at these tales that the Grimm brothers

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Speaker 1: wrote down, they have very pressing historical and cultural significance.

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Speaker 1: And we're going to study one in particular and just

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Speaker 1: a minute, but just to go ahead and finish out

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Speaker 1: the Grim brothers story. Um, As the Napoleonic invasions came

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Speaker 1: throughout Germany and throughout Europe, their professions changed a little

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Speaker 1: bit too. I think that they took out a stable

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Speaker 1: law school and decided that wasn't going to work out.

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Speaker 1: So Jacob actually became a diplomat for a while and

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Speaker 1: Wilhelm became a secretary to a librarian. And around this

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Speaker 1: time they put out the second volume. Next came small Edition,

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Speaker 1: which was a collection of the fairy tales that their

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Speaker 1: brother Ludwig illustrated. But if you think that the Grim

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Speaker 1: brothers were all fairy tales, you're mistaken, because they were

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Speaker 1: philologists too, And if you aren't up too sweet on philology, essentially,

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Speaker 1: it's uh, it's linguistics really and it puts a lot

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Speaker 1: of emphasis on a culture's history and identity and how

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Speaker 1: speech patterns really illuminate that. So they spend some time

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Speaker 1: in their retirement actually compiling a German dictionary, and Jacob

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Speaker 1: is credited for a pretty significant linguistic contribution called Grimm's Law.

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Speaker 1: And I'm no linguist or expert, but as far as

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Speaker 1: I can understand it, essentially what Grimm's Law boils down

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Speaker 1: to with the alteration of of sounds in particular words,

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Speaker 1: as the Germanic language became more and more disparate from

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Speaker 1: other European languages. And I don't have a really good

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Speaker 1: example for you guys, but you can all google Grimm's

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Speaker 1: law and you can see lots of illustrated examples of

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Speaker 1: how it works. And I think there's even one that

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Speaker 1: I found online that shares how it works within the

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Speaker 1: context of a grim Brother's fairy tale. And speaking of

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Speaker 1: fairy tales, that is what we are going to talk

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Speaker 1: about today, and the very very scary possibility that one

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Speaker 1: of the most frightening Grimm Brothers fairy tales might actually

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Speaker 1: be true. That's right, and we're talking about the Pied

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Speaker 1: piper of Hamelin, and this was a really popular story

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Speaker 1: as soon as it came out, like Candice was talking

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Speaker 1: about and one famous poet, Robert Brownie even even did

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Speaker 1: a really popular English version of the story. But to

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Speaker 1: go back to the original Grimm story, you ready for

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Speaker 1: story time, I am okay, I've got my cookies and

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Speaker 1: lactaste free milk. Well, don't lay down in bed because

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Speaker 1: this is going to freak you out so you can't

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Speaker 1: sleep afterwards. So this story is set in the German

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Speaker 1: town of Hamlin. This is a real place and it

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Speaker 1: exists to this day. It starts back in twelve eighty four.

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Speaker 1: So back then, the according to the story, the whole

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Speaker 1: town was suffering from this really bad rat and a station.

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Speaker 1: While it's dealing with this, uh, it doesn't know what

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Speaker 1: to do. The rats everywhere. So this motley clad fellow

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Speaker 1: strolls in promises the town people, I can get rid

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Speaker 1: of all your rats, and uh. The townspeople are so

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Speaker 1: happy about this that they're like, yes, please, and they

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Speaker 1: like promise as much money as the motley fellow um once.

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Speaker 1: So he takes out his pipe and he starts playing

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Speaker 1: it and magically all the rats come gathering around him.

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Speaker 1: They follow him wherever he goes, and eventually he leads

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Speaker 1: them into a river near the near the town. Uh

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Speaker 1: called the river weezer wiser I'm not sure, but no

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Speaker 1: visa and that's good. And the rats follow him in

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Speaker 1: to this to this river as he goes in and

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Speaker 1: just blindly follow and he and they all drown. So

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Speaker 1: the townspeople are ecstatic and they are so happy to

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Speaker 1: be rid of the rats. So the piper is like, okay,

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Speaker 1: I did my deed, where's my money? And this is

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Speaker 1: is probably where we get the term pay the piper,

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Speaker 1: as we'll see um. The town refuses to pay the

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Speaker 1: piper in this in this situation in the story, and

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Speaker 1: they say, when the rats are gone, what are you

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Speaker 1: gonna do. We're not gonna pay you anymore. We're gonna

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Speaker 1: bring them back to life or something. So he leaves

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Speaker 1: the town and he's really mad, and justifiably so, but

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Speaker 1: he swears vengeance, and his vengeance I don't know if

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Speaker 1: is if it's quite as warranted. So he returns to

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Speaker 1: the town a little later, and this time he's dressed

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Speaker 1: a little differently, and he's playing a new tune this time,

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Speaker 1: and this time, rats don't come, but children do. Every

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Speaker 1: single child starts uh following him, and not just the children,

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Speaker 1: right that the mayor's grown daughter. That's right. The Grim

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Speaker 1: Story mentions the mayor's grown daughter. Which maybe that's a

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Speaker 1: little flap in the face of the mayor right there,

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Speaker 1: who is probably responsible for him not getting paid. It's

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Speaker 1: really interesting. So the kids gather around, dance around him,

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Speaker 1: and follow him wherever he goes, just like the rats do.

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Speaker 1: And he doesn't take them into the river, but he

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Speaker 1: does do something just as bad, and he takes them

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Speaker 1: to a cave in a nearby nearby mountain, and they're

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Speaker 1: never heard from again. And what's curious is that some

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Speaker 1: say in the in the Grim Story, at least some

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Speaker 1: say that the kids went into the cave and they

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Speaker 1: came out on the other side, which happened to be

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Speaker 1: in Transylvania. Either way, nobody heard from the kids again

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Speaker 1: in the town of Hamelin. So in the context of

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Speaker 1: a fairy tale, that's disturbing enough, because no one wants

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Speaker 1: to see all of a town's children just vanish into

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Speaker 1: thin air under the under the direction of some strange

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Speaker 1: guy wearing multicolored clothes. It's pretty creepy, but the fact

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Speaker 1: that it could actually be a real story. Who the

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Speaker 1: heck was this piper? And I think some historians have

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Speaker 1: even gone so far as to suggest that he was

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Speaker 1: a pedophile and he learned the children to a secret

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Speaker 1: place and then he chopped up their bodies and scattered

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Speaker 1: them everywhere. Yeah, that's one theory that actually William Manchester writes,

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Speaker 1: and it's kind of a controversial book. We should say

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Speaker 1: it's called a world lit only by fire, and that's

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Speaker 1: what he says. Um A lot of people question that,

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Speaker 1: and there are other theories, and it's interesting because the

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Speaker 1: story isn't the only reason people think this might have happened.

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Speaker 1: There is a little bit more evidence that something terrible

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Speaker 1: happened in Hamlin, and one piece of evidence is the

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Speaker 1: idea of a stained glass window that the that the

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Speaker 1: townspeople put up around the year thirteen hundred. And they

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Speaker 1: put up this window, apparently in the church, and it

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Speaker 1: depicted a motley clad fellow with a group of children

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Speaker 1: just in white. And the window doesn't exist today. If

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Speaker 1: you go to Hamlin, you won't see it because it

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Speaker 1: was apparently destroyed. But there are accounts that exist that

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Speaker 1: say that there are accounts of the window, people who

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Speaker 1: had seen it and wrote about it, and I had

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Speaker 1: a pretty Italian inscription, right, that's right. It had an

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Speaker 1: inscription around it that said that a hundred and thirty

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Speaker 1: children were brought into danger and lost. So um, it

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Speaker 1: does beg the question if something did happen. And another

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Speaker 1: piece of evidence that popped up was about a century

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Speaker 1: after the window was put up, there is an account

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Speaker 1: of this monk writing that a man playing the flute

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Speaker 1: came into the town and led the kids out very curious,

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Speaker 1: And by sixteen o three the town puts up a

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Speaker 1: three hundred years after the story would have apparently happened.

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Speaker 1: Around that year, they the townspeople put up a facade

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Speaker 1: of a building with another similar inscription about a pied

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Speaker 1: piper bringing the kids into danger. And one of the

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Speaker 1: issues that we've actually discussed before on an earlier podcast

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Speaker 1: about Lady Gdiva another story that revolved around amongst writings

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Speaker 1: and a stained glass window, is that when we're talking

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Speaker 1: about oral storytelling, only so much can really be trusted.

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Speaker 1: And what's great about the Brothers Grim is that they

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Speaker 1: finally took these oral stories and recorded them but if

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Speaker 1: they were in fact based in history, real events that occurred,

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Speaker 1: who knows how many times the stories have been manipulated

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Speaker 1: by word of mouth and by people who didn't quite

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Speaker 1: understand what they were saying into the tale that it became.

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Speaker 1: And uh, you may recall an earlier podcast that Jane

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Speaker 1: and I did about the crusades, and Jane discussed the

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Speaker 1: children's crusade, and that's another possibility that these children followed

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Speaker 1: one child in particular who may have claimed to have

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Speaker 1: a vision from God that he was supposed to lead

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Speaker 1: his fellow children into battle and you know, to avenge

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Speaker 1: the Holy Land, and that could have been its Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that is one possible theory, and it's kind of it's

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Speaker 1: a little convincing. I think that could have happened because

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Speaker 1: it was around that time, maybe a little bit later.

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Speaker 1: But there is another really interesting theory that maybe the

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Speaker 1: children are all suffering from some horrible disease and it

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Speaker 1: caused them to die, and people historians they guess that

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Speaker 1: perhaps this is an early form of the plague. We

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Speaker 1: did an earlier podcast on the Black Death, and um,

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Speaker 1: if you heard that, you'll know a little bit about

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Speaker 1: about that disease and how horrible it was, and historians

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Speaker 1: postulate to that the motley clad fellow who was the

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Speaker 1: pied piper may not have been dressed in multicolored armands. Instead,

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Speaker 1: his skin could have been motley, It could have had

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Speaker 1: red splotches that were symptomatic of some sort of disease

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Speaker 1: that he had. They could have been some sort of

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Speaker 1: skin lesions, and the idea that he may have even

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Speaker 1: been afflicted with Huntington's disease, which is a disease that

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Speaker 1: manifests and people who are of middle age, and it

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Speaker 1: can be characterized by um I think mild bouts of dementia,

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Speaker 1: and people could act in rather exuberant ways. We know

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Speaker 1: that the piper came in dancing a little bit merrily,

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Speaker 1: supposedly playing on his pipe, leading the children out in

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Speaker 1: a very fanciful dance and song. So maybe he could

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Speaker 1: have been demented in some way. We we don't really know,

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Speaker 1: but I think that there is enough historical evidence to

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Speaker 1: suggest that there is a grain of historical truth to

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Speaker 1: the pie Piper of Hamlin. Those true, and it's really interesting,

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Speaker 1: And I do want to mention one less theory which

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Speaker 1: might be the most convincing for me at least. Remember

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Speaker 1: I mentioned at the end of the story that some

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Speaker 1: say that the kids came out at the other side

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Speaker 1: in Transylvania. And there is some evidence that a man

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Speaker 1: came to the town of Hamilin around the right time

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Speaker 1: of the story, and he was looking for people to

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Speaker 1: help him colonize parts of eastern Europe. So there's speculation

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Speaker 1: at least that the kids might have come with him

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Speaker 1: and taking taking them to a place around where Transylvania

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Speaker 1: was uh. And that's what actually happened to the children,

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Speaker 1: and that may shed some light on the fact that

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Speaker 1: the mayor's grown daughter maybe maybe she had some sort

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Speaker 1: of special permission from her father as the leader of

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Speaker 1: the town, to get with them and help them colonize

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Speaker 1: this new land. That's right, Kenemy really know. But what

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Speaker 1: is really interesting is that you may be thinking, well,

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Speaker 1: thank goodness, there are no more rats in the town

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Speaker 1: of Hamlin. Left another pied piper come along and take

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Speaker 1: all of their children. While I'm very sorry to inform

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Speaker 1: you that the Times actually reported on December seventeenth of

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Speaker 1: two thousand eight that Hamlin has a rat problem again,

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Speaker 1: and the particular reporter who was covering the story used

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Speaker 1: the phrase rat catchers are in vogue again, so, and

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Speaker 1: they're attributing the rat problem to these allot in gardens

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Speaker 1: around the periphery of the city. And they're sort of

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Speaker 1: like community gardens, you know, you can pay a fee

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Speaker 1: to have a small parcel of land to grow flowers

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Speaker 1: and vegetables and fruits, and if they're not tended to,

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Speaker 1: they just they beckon for rats to come and just

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Speaker 1: create a mess. So I think that they were estimating

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Speaker 1: that more than two hundred packs of rats had been

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Speaker 1: identified in the city as of December two thousand and eight.

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Speaker 1: And rats are they're pretty productive, and the boudoir as

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Speaker 1: it were, and I think that one couple can breed

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Speaker 1: up to two thousand descendants per year. So there's a

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Speaker 1: debate right now over how they're going to kill all

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Speaker 1: of these rats and do it in a humane way,

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Speaker 1: which probably was not a huge concern back when the

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Speaker 1: Grim Brothers would have been writing. I think that less

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Speaker 1: concerned about the humanity of of killing rats correctly, sure,

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Speaker 1: so I guess the stories is a lot more alive

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Speaker 1: today in Himland than they wanted to be. But also

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Speaker 1: they do get a lot of tourism to this day

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Speaker 1: you can visit Hammond. Um. I guess it's spilled differently now,

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Speaker 1: but it's the same town and every Sunday actually in

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Speaker 1: the summer they act out the story. So they do.

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Speaker 1: They do, carry in's a lot of tourism for it,

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Speaker 1: they do. I think they even make rat shaped bunds

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Speaker 1: in local bakery. They have a musical called Rats, you know,

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Speaker 1: not too dissimilar from our cats over here. Um, you

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Speaker 1: can even take a rat catch your tour. And from

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Speaker 1: what I understand, especially in you know, Hamlin, today, it's

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Speaker 1: a pretty thriving profession. You can make a pretty penny

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Speaker 1: off being a rat catcher. And back during the time

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Speaker 1: of the Black Death and the plague, it was a

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Speaker 1: very esteem profession because you're really putting yourself in a

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Speaker 1: lot of fire like a policeman would today. You know,

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Speaker 1: there's always that risk that you could die when you're

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Speaker 1: on the job. So anyway, Pie Piper one of the

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Speaker 1: oldest rat catchers and and uh Grim brother history. Remember

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Speaker 1: to pay the piper, exactly pay the piper, and for

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Speaker 1: even more about fairy tales that have a grain historical

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Speaker 1: truth and other interesting characters from history, be sure to

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Speaker 1: check out how stuff works dot com and if you

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Speaker 1: have any ideas about a historical topic you'd like to

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Speaker 1: hear us discuss, email us at history podcast at how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com For more on this and thousands

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Speaker 1: of other topics because at how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: M