The Horrifying True Story of the Pied Piper

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deliciousness and remember to add the limited edition toasted marshmallow and honey grab flavors to your order before they're gone thanks to Magic spoon and now back to today's video fairy tales stories you tell children right Port actually is a fairy tale stories like Cinderella or Snow White are probably the first ones you think of or maybe the Timeless stories of the brothers Grim might come to mind they have enough Gore in their version of Little Red Riding Hood to give horror films a run for their money in fact when you look back as far as the Middle Ages you can see that nearly all fairy tales had a much gorier original version when compared to the Disney Classics that we all know and love there is one exception one that throughout all time has never unadulterated the fact that it tells the story of 130 children dying to make it all the darker it just might be true and that's our Focus today today we're going to tell you the story of the Pied Piper of Hamlin or as he is Otherwise Known the devil who stole the babes from Hamlin foreign [Music] defining feature of what makes a fairy tale a fairy tale is the fact that there is no one agreed Canon version of the tale this means that most fairy tales have dozens if not hundreds of different variants of the story existing and this is equally true for the story of the Pied Piper although like all fairy tales there are a few elements of the story that appear in every single version of it one example is the date of the event all versions agree that our story happened in 1284. on the day of saints John and Paul for anyone not up to date on their early medieval Christian calendar that means the day was the 26th of June a Sunday You're Welcome in the version of the story popularized by the brothers Grim we find out that the town of Hamlin has been plagued by a horde of giant rats these rats are said to be the size of dogs and spreading plague tearing babies away from their mothers and ruining the Harvest of the town the people of Hamlin apparently came together and approached their mayor demanding that something be done about the plague they're not though like any competent politician the mayor knew how to solve the issue he'd just throw money at it until it went away luckily for him and unluckily for the children of Hamlin a piper wearing pied clothing meaning multicolored was passing through the town the piper heard of the mayor's strife and approached him claiming that he'd be able to free Hamlin from its plague of rats there being a few hundred years before either background checks or CVS the mayor promptly agreed to pay the piper for chasing the rats out of Hamlin and this is why inversions of the story that arise from the mid-17th century onwards the Pied Piper is also known as the rat catcher this is one of his three names with the Lost being the devil in pied clothing promptly upon being given the promise of payment the piper is then said to have begun playing a tune in many versions of the story it said that this tune could not be heard by anybody in the town the rats apparently could hear the tune though and they immediately began to follow the piper as he made his way out of the town in the brothers Grim version a singular death rat does not follow the piper on following the piper there are three different versions of what happens to the rats we have listed them here in order from most wholesome to Elise wholesome and the first version popularized by Disney the piper leads the rats to a great block of cheese entering through holes dotted around the cheese before all disappearing in the second version the pipe takes their ads to a nearby Mountain where they all enter a cave and they're never seen again in the third and original version the piper leads the rats into a nearby River where they all drown now it should be given particular notes that versions before the 17th century make no reference to rats at all but what is agreed by all versions of the story is that some promise was made to the piper by the people of Hamlin a promise of which they refuse to follow through on early versions say that the people of Hamlin came up with excuses and later versions say that the people of Hamlin accused the piper of being the one who brought the rats to Hamlin in the first place what happens next is agreed upon by all sources though upon hearing that the town did not wish to pay him the piper gave them one last opportunity he told them that he would return after a set amount of time with some Burtons claiming a day other versions claiming a year and a day and if they did not pay him by the time that he had returned then he would take what was owed to him in all versions of the story the piper returns after the set time always leading him to arrive on Sunday morning on the day of Saint John and Paul a time when all the adults of town would be in church but the children would be out playing games upon his return it is said that the piper began to play his tune yet again and all of the children of the town would follow him up into the mountains there he led the children to a mountain where there was a cave which he led the obedient flock into in some versions of the story some of the children did not follow the piper into the Mountain's cave there are four variations on who did not follow the piper with different versions of the story sometimes including multiple variants but never including all the children the first group of survivors is a pair of children one deaf and mute and the second blind according to this version of the story these children followed those who were taken by the piper but for some unknown reason could not enter the Cave the second variation talks about a child who followed the others into the cave but parway through got chilly and so return to the town for his coat by the time the children returned to where the others had been they were already gone no sign of any cave remaining the third and fourth variations both appear to be mutually exclusive as they both seemed to fulfill the same role in the stories where they are included they are the individuals who inform the adults of Hamlin as to what happened the third variation is a four-year-old child in the care of a babysitter this child apparently attempted to follow his friends but the babysitter stopped him having seen what the other children had done though she informs the adults of the town the fourth variation is a child he's referred to as lame meaning they have some mobility issue the child is said to have followed the others from the town but was not fast enough to enter the cave before it mysteriously disappears in this variant the child returns to the town and immediately informs the adults no matter which group of survivors are considered there is a one fact that is present in all versions of the story there are always 130 children taken from Hamlin and the mayor's teenage daughter is always one of them from there the parents of Hamlin are said to run to the mountain only to find no chase of their children remaining in some older versions of the story other children's parents find the piper in these versions the piper taunts the parents that his payment has been collected before disappearing [Music] foreign we just told you a story involving a Magic Flute a disappearing cave and a magical man so you might be wondering why anyone would think that this story was based on any truth so we need to look at what a fairy tale is and how they originated in the 16th and 17th centuries fairy tales were a method of Storytelling primarily passed through spoken word because most people couldn't read this is why one common theme among them is a few shared elements of the story with variations in the exact details of what happened because different bards put different spins on the story this tends to mean that most fairy tales can trace themselves back to one origin point which can sometimes be documented in older hard records from the time before the fairy tale was the common medium now this is exactly what we see with the Pied Piper when historians investigated where this fairy tale may have come from they first found a record from the mid-15th century called the Lunenburg manuscript a record of History are written by a monk it does not appear to include any fictionalized stories and generally just seems to be and attempt to document the known stories of the time around that region in Germany one section of this manuscript details The Taking of 130 children from the town of Hamlin in the year 1284 by a piper this detail got historians even more interested in finding more about this event so they started looking deeper into Hamlin itself upon arrival they discovered three more things that added to the idea that this fairy tale was a documentation of a dark fact firstly they found an inscription on the town hall dated to around 1500 A.D which read in the year 1284 after the birth of Christ from Hamlin were LED 130 children born at this place LED Away by a piper into a mountain the second piece of the puzzle found in Hamlin was a stained glass mural found in a church that had been destroyed and rebuilt in the early 19th century it was claimed that the mural had been Faithfully reconstructed from the original the mural depicts a Pied Piper playing his tune with children in the background the third piece of evidence one that is often given the most weight is the original Town records of Hammond these records began in 1384 exactly a hundred years after the story say the pipe was struck and the first line of those records reads it has been a hundred years since the day our children left when investigated further it was discovered that these records appeared to be genuine standing up to all measures of scientific scrutiny considering all of this evidence most historians have concluded beyond all doubt that something happened in Hamlin in 1284. foreign [Music] there are a few problems with the idea that the events of this story just happened Chief among them being that it is about a magic man who can play a magic tune and apparently make caves disappear but there's also a listening about the problems with claiming the story to be exactly accurate such as the details of the piper himself many historians who have touched on the topic have concluded that the piper is too good a bad guy to be accurate you see a medieval Society Pipers were despised individuals they were seen as lazy and the Bringers of ill Omen many Pipers would be turned away from towns where they hoped to seek shelter and many others would face physical violence the piper is a component of the story that we can see in even the earliest records and as such it has often been stated that the piper is a metaphor this is something only strengthened when considered alongside his pied nature pied refers to the colors of the Piper's clothing and it is a description of those multi-colored patterns which are common among medieval imagery and can be still seen in ancient uniforms dating from the time like the Swiss guard of the Vatican the color did not have positive connotations though and was often associated with executioners and death itself this is mostly explained by the fact that when executioners carried out their Grim duties they would be required by their Lords to wear bright colorful outfits and attempt to make the execution as visible as possible it is for this reason that historians following the first line of thought have come to the conclusion that perhaps the piper is a metaphor for some event or action that led to the deaths of those 130 children and this brings us to the big question behind the fairy tale if the Pied Piper is a metaphor for some event that killed or otherwise removed 130 children from Hamlin then what was that event in answering this there have been a few theories promulgated by historians and literary experts alike the first of these is the theory that the story tells of a Great Plague such as maybe the black death which was famously spread by Rats the creature that features so prominently in later versions of the story there are however a few problems with this idea firstly it would not be until 70 years after 1284 that the first Bubonic plague outbreak would occur in Europe secondly other rats do not feature in any original telling of the story and first appear in the mid-1600s before being popularized by The Brothers Grimm finally there is no reason to think that a play could explain why specifically the children of Hamlin were impacted the second possible explanation which was received quite a lot more support among experts is that the 130 children were taken by the Children's Crusade of 1212. the Children's Crusade was a failed Crusade led by Nicholas of cologne and Stephen of cloys in an attempt to establish a kingdom of Jerusalem in the Holy Land it is claimed that two crusading forces were raised from Germany and France and would constitute a total of 30 000 people primarily children although it would also be then claimed that almost all of these thirty thousand children would be wholesale slaughtered upon reaching the Holy Land There is one major issue with claiming that the Pied Piper is telling of the Children's Crusade and that is the date The Crusade is widely documented to have taken place in 1212. this is seen it dozens if not hundreds of sources and most historians agree that sources after 1250 speaking about this Crusade can't be trusted all sources we have that speak about the piper come far beyond this period with the earliest being the town records of 1384. this is confounded even further when it is considered that all major tellings of the Pied Piper point to 1284 as the date that the 130 children were taken this means that even though the Children's Crusade would explain the stories of the children who were left behind it could mostly be discounted the third and most persuasive explanation when considering this historical record for what happened is the idea that the story actually speaks of the emigration from Hamlin rather than the loss of 130 children in the late 13th century Eastern Germany was going through an economic downturn Hamlin based its economy of trade on the local River as this was decreasing it's highly likely that people left Hamlin this could provide a good explanation when the traditional naming conventions are understood at that point in time if somebody emigrated from a town then they would be known as a child of that town that means anybody who emigrated from Hamlin would have been known as a child of Hamlet which is the exact wording referred to in the town records of 1384. this is further compounded by the records of towns in Transylvania which seemed to document many families appearing in the final five years of the 13th century with surnames otherwise associated with Hamlin this explanation could even explain the reference made to a piper as Pipers were often employed as Freelancers to carry out any sort of odd jobs and oh one could have been employed by a Transylvanian Lord to go into cure residents for a newly constructed town or Hamlet of all the historical explanations that claim to be the truth of the fairy tale this one has found the most support among historians and literature experts alike and that's not to say that there aren't other unexplained facts though firstly there are dozens of other stories dated to the same period in nearby towns that are virtually identical to the events of the Pied Piper most famously is the story of the missing children of Brandenburg which is virtually identical to the story of the Pied Piper and was also documented for the first time in the mid-1380s secondly there are major issues associated with the addition of rats to the tail these only arose after the mid-1600s and dominated almost all versions of the tale since then it has been argued by literary historians that this may mean that there are actually two stories within the Pied Piper tail that may be getting confused generally when a fairy tale can be traced back to a true story it's not easy to change the entire narrative in such a way as the introduction of the rats to this story did ultimately one thing is clear no matter what version of the events and theories you subscribe to in 1284 something dark happened in the small Germantown of Hamlin something dark that took the children foreign [Music]

Channel: Into the Shadows

Views: 932,100

Keywords: messed up origins of the pied piper, the pied piper, crypt fables pied piper, the pied piper of hamelin, pied piper, pied piper origins, pied piper of hamelin, pied piper original story, children of hamelin

Id: 7syBEVmukJM

Length: 16min 41sec (1001 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 24 2023