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Is the Pied Piper About a Real Historic Tragedy? · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot Com. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:13
Speaker 1: and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there.
0:16
Speaker 1: This is Stuff you Should Know fairy Tale Edition. Jerry
0:21
Speaker 1: is supposedly on vacation. Yea, what's going on? But she
0:25
Speaker 1: came in here just for us, Jerry. I think she
0:28
Speaker 1: feels beholden. That's nice, which is weird because she's We've
0:32
Speaker 1: had guest producers. I don't know. Maybe she feels like
0:35
Speaker 1: her job is threatened. Is today the day I die? Oh? Jeesus?
0:40
Speaker 1: Hoping Jerry knows it. Can't we at least get these
0:42
Speaker 1: two in the can first? Yeah, well probably unless something
0:45
Speaker 1: really crazy happens in the next hour and two. Yeah,
0:49
Speaker 1: that'll give me time to get in touch with like
0:51
Speaker 1: the five people I have on my list to replace you.
0:54
Speaker 1: I know, the five Bano right, Obama? Right, Michael Stipe,
1:01
Speaker 1: Michael Stipe, Bobby Fisher. I think there was one more.
1:05
Speaker 1: I can't remember, Bobby Fisher, the chess player. Yeah, that's
1:08
Speaker 1: a little random. Well, I want to correct that episode
1:12
Speaker 1: and Optimus Prime that's the fifth one, that's right, yea. Uh, Chuckers.
1:18
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of fairy Tale before? Yeah? We
1:22
Speaker 1: uh we did two very good episodes. Oh, if you
1:25
Speaker 1: say so yourself. No, these were good. I don't often
1:28
Speaker 1: say that, but in November of two thousand fifteen, we
1:32
Speaker 1: did it back to backer with the dark origins of
1:34
Speaker 1: fairy tales and how the Grimm's fairy tales work or
1:37
Speaker 1: the grand Brothers. We had fairy tale fever. We did,
1:41
Speaker 1: but man, we licked it. So did you go back
1:43
Speaker 1: and listen to them and you're like, wow, these are
1:45
Speaker 1: good or you just remember them being good. I remember
1:48
Speaker 1: them being good, okay, and being especially kind of proud
1:51
Speaker 1: of those too. Really, that's fantastic. That's how I feel
1:54
Speaker 1: about your limb is torn off? Now? What? That was
1:59
Speaker 1: a good one good title about reattachment surgery. Remember that? Yeah?
2:02
Speaker 1: I think that that titles all you. That's a Josh
2:05
Speaker 1: Clark title. You've got some good titles out there too.
2:09
Speaker 1: What's the deal with blank? You know who's really good
2:11
Speaker 1: at coming up with titles? Bono? Yeah, where the streets
2:16
Speaker 1: have no name? Right? Where the where the streets have
2:20
Speaker 1: no drums? M dude, you just did it. So we're
2:25
Speaker 1: talking about fairy tales today, specifically, specifically, we're talking about
2:29
Speaker 1: the fairy tale of the Pie Piper of Hamlin, And
2:32
Speaker 1: as far as fairy tales go, it seems to be
2:36
Speaker 1: a little different than other fairy tales. And the reason
2:41
Speaker 1: why it's a little different is because, horrifically it's people
2:46
Speaker 1: think scholars, not just you know, average truck like, real
2:51
Speaker 1: deal scholars think that something actually happened that formed the
2:55
Speaker 1: basis of this fairy tale. Right Whereas with Hansel and
3:01
Speaker 1: Gretel it wasn't based on some witchy lady who ate children, No,
3:06
Speaker 1: but that one might have had some basis in fact too.
3:08
Speaker 1: How about like rumpel Stiltskin, probably not based in fact? Right?
3:13
Speaker 1: You remember the little guy who, like you, trick him
3:16
Speaker 1: into saying his own name back? The little I don't
3:19
Speaker 1: think he had a big heart. He had an insatiable
3:22
Speaker 1: sexual appetite, is what it was. Oh, the little girls.
3:25
Speaker 1: The big heart was Bono, right man. We're gonna get
3:29
Speaker 1: so many emails from people being like, layoff Bono. What's
3:32
Speaker 1: what's with the bono references? Who's Bono? They must work
3:36
Speaker 1: with that Bono guy? I wish so chuck Um the
3:41
Speaker 1: pie Piper. The reason why we say it might be
3:43
Speaker 1: based in fact is because there's actual, like historic evidence
3:47
Speaker 1: that kind of supports this thing, and you can find
3:50
Speaker 1: it in this town of Hamlin, which is a real place.
3:53
Speaker 1: It's not a made up like fairy tale land. Like
3:56
Speaker 1: you knows your first clue. Yeah, most fair detales are
4:00
Speaker 1: not set in an actual place, right, I don't know,
4:04
Speaker 1: are they know? They're just made up, or they're in
4:07
Speaker 1: a very vague place, or they take place in a
4:11
Speaker 1: larger place like oh, in Germany one day, or in
4:14
Speaker 1: Bavaria one day, not like in this town that actually
4:18
Speaker 1: existed at the time we're saying it did. Which is
4:21
Speaker 1: another thing too, because if you look at the actual
4:24
Speaker 1: fairy tales we'll get to in a second, there's like
4:26
Speaker 1: a specific date that also is very unusual for their tale.
4:32
Speaker 1: So the more you dig into it, the more you're like, yeah,
4:34
Speaker 1: this might have actually happened. And then what you think, oh,
4:37
Speaker 1: this might have actually happened, then you're struck with some
4:41
Speaker 1: of the greatest dread human being can experience, because it's
4:47
Speaker 1: something bad happened, is what happened? Let's talk about it,
4:51
Speaker 1: all right, Well, let's get into the original fairy tale,
4:54
Speaker 1: The Grimm's Brothers Tale of the Pipe Piper. Not even
5:00
Speaker 1: Irish um. Jane McGrath, good old Jane from back in
5:06
Speaker 1: the day wrote this one, and she points out that
5:08
Speaker 1: it is a tale, a cautionary tale about governance as
5:12
Speaker 1: well as taking responsibility for financial agreements. She's right, but
5:17
Speaker 1: it putting it that way, it seems a little funny.
5:19
Speaker 1: But it is twelve eighty four in Hamlin in Germany,
5:24
Speaker 1: and there was a rat infestation in the town at
5:28
Speaker 1: the time, and the mayor and this is the fairy tale,
5:31
Speaker 1: you're gonna right, yeah, yeah, And so that the mayor
5:34
Speaker 1: of the town didn't know what to do. The burgermeister,
5:38
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, maister Burger. Uh, the stranger comes into town
5:42
Speaker 1: and war and I didn't know what pid even meant.
5:45
Speaker 1: I didn't either. What is it? Multi colored? Yeah, he
5:49
Speaker 1: wore multi colored clothes, pied multi colored clothes. That's all
5:53
Speaker 1: he was. He was a piper who wore colorful clothing.
5:56
Speaker 1: Had nothing to do with eating pies or I thought
5:59
Speaker 1: walk king on his feet, you know, he thought that's
6:02
Speaker 1: what it meant. Yeah, why because I think like a
6:05
Speaker 1: like pedestrian comes from pied p well, but I think
6:11
Speaker 1: it's like maybe Italian or something that certainly makes more
6:15
Speaker 1: sense than me having no clue. Yeah, but I was
6:18
Speaker 1: way off, so it doesn't matter. He walked. He did walk.
6:23
Speaker 1: That was the other reason I thought that too. So
6:25
Speaker 1: his outfit looked a little weird. Apparently multicolored people didn't
6:29
Speaker 1: dress like that. I reckon. I saw though that it
6:31
Speaker 1: was also like um, like a splendid outfit that he
6:36
Speaker 1: attracted a lot of attention, and people were like, I
6:39
Speaker 1: wish I could, I wish I had the Cohonans dressed
6:42
Speaker 1: like you pie piper dance around with a band. Uh.
6:46
Speaker 1: And he had a called it a musical pipe or
6:49
Speaker 1: some kind of flute, not a smoking pipe. Heads no uh.
6:53
Speaker 1: And he hears about this rat problem. He comes into town.
6:57
Speaker 1: He drags his fingernails along the chalkboard and gets everyone attention,
7:01
Speaker 1: and the down meeting says, I'll kill that shark. Oh,
7:04
Speaker 1: you gotta do it, but no, no, no, I'll kill
7:07
Speaker 1: the rats. Yeah, but in the voice, I can't do
7:10
Speaker 1: quint well, whatever, you can do anything. You're like the
7:13
Speaker 1: rich little of this this company. Jerry's laughing at us
7:16
Speaker 1: for no reason. She's so sick of this man, she's
7:20
Speaker 1: really tickled today, Jerry, are you stoned? No, she's been
7:23
Speaker 1: smoking her own magical pipe. So they agree on a
7:27
Speaker 1: price to get rid of the rats. Piper takes out
7:30
Speaker 1: his his little his little hand flute. Yeah, yeah, I
7:34
Speaker 1: don't know if that's what's called. But the price is important.
7:37
Speaker 1: Can I go into the price for a second. So
7:40
Speaker 1: he initially said that he would get rid of the
7:41
Speaker 1: rats for a thousand florins, which is either coins or
7:45
Speaker 1: money from Italy or France or the Netherlands, but money
7:49
Speaker 1: a thousand a lot of the time, thousand pieces of money.
7:52
Speaker 1: And this this town of Hamlin was so overrun by rats.
7:55
Speaker 1: Apparently all their cats had died. Though yes they got
7:59
Speaker 1: they beat the cats. I didn't see explained what happened
8:04
Speaker 1: to the cats, just that the cats died, and that's
8:06
Speaker 1: why the town is over rung. Okay, which is a
8:08
Speaker 1: weird little thing, don't you think. Yeah, because my first
8:10
Speaker 1: thing was like, why a pie piper just get some cats?
8:13
Speaker 1: The cats had all died, all right, good thinking, chuck um.
8:17
Speaker 1: But they they say a thousand florins will give you
8:20
Speaker 1: fifty thousand florins if you get rid of these rats.
8:22
Speaker 1: Our problem is so bad, and he says done. But
8:25
Speaker 1: was that a facetious offer? I think it was a
8:28
Speaker 1: desperate a desperate boast. Okay, But the pipe piper was like,
8:33
Speaker 1: all right, I'll agree to your terms. I just wanted
8:35
Speaker 1: a thousand, but fifty thousand it is, and they went
8:38
Speaker 1: I think we ever spent. I regret saying that. You
8:41
Speaker 1: should hear the guy. So he pulls out the instrument
8:45
Speaker 1: he um starts playing. As the story goes, all the
8:48
Speaker 1: rats congregate around him, and he leaps about and dances
8:52
Speaker 1: through town into the Weser River, which the rats drowned,
8:58
Speaker 1: which is complete um fabrication, because rats are very good swimmers.
9:03
Speaker 1: They really are. I thought about that too. I even
9:05
Speaker 1: looked it up. They're good swimmers, not just rats you've
9:08
Speaker 1: seen it's rats in general. Yeah. I mean the first thing, honestly,
9:11
Speaker 1: when I heard that, the first thing that made me
9:13
Speaker 1: think that was like, wait a minute, first blood. He's
9:16
Speaker 1: in that abandoned mind chat. Those rats are swimming all
9:19
Speaker 1: over the place. So I looked it up. I was like,
9:21
Speaker 1: is that true? And apparently rats are really good swimmers,
9:24
Speaker 1: better than others. It's in there too, So this fairy
9:26
Speaker 1: tale stinks of bs already, okay, But the the story
9:32
Speaker 1: goes that the rats followed this guy in a trance
9:34
Speaker 1: to the river, whereupon they drowned. Maybe they were in
9:36
Speaker 1: the trance and that was why they couldn't swim, because
9:39
Speaker 1: they were just so lulled by his his hand flute,
9:43
Speaker 1: his smooth jazz. Should you take a break there and
9:46
Speaker 1: finish the story after, Oh, it's quite a cliff banger.
9:49
Speaker 1: All right, let's do that, all right, Chuck, We're back
10:16
Speaker 1: to lay it on them. Man, that was that was
10:19
Speaker 1: high class. Well, they drown all the rats. The pie
10:22
Speaker 1: piper is successful. Everyone parties German style, which is to
10:25
Speaker 1: say they probably got hammered on eight eight ounce beers.
10:32
Speaker 1: Have you ever been to Germany? You ever had the
10:34
Speaker 1: beers there? The big Yeah? I mean they've got big
10:36
Speaker 1: old beers there for sure. And they have lids on
10:38
Speaker 1: their their mugs too, because you know, there's so much
10:42
Speaker 1: of it you can just set it down, save it
10:44
Speaker 1: for later. But I don't think they save it for later.
10:46
Speaker 1: The beer garden I went too did not have the lids.
10:49
Speaker 1: Maybe I've just seen in those on TV. But what
10:51
Speaker 1: they did have was a four and a half foot
10:55
Speaker 1: tall woman with popeye sized four arms, carrying six of
11:01
Speaker 1: those giants, like like a pro, not like a bro.
11:07
Speaker 1: They were pros well too. It's probably sold to the
11:09
Speaker 1: beer garden at a young age and was raised. Please
11:12
Speaker 1: tell me that's not the case. Um alright, so, uh
11:16
Speaker 1: where are we? Townspeople are partying? They're they're getting hammered,
11:19
Speaker 1: they're singing, they're they're they're prosting, singing your German beer
11:23
Speaker 1: hall uh songs as they are one to do. And
11:28
Speaker 1: then dude says, uh, what's up with that? All those florins? Yeah,
11:35
Speaker 1: he's like, everybody, I'm really glad you enjoyed my work,
11:37
Speaker 1: but now it's time for me to go pay me.
11:40
Speaker 1: And did they just stiff them or did they say, well,
11:42
Speaker 1: let's go back to the thousand. Uh, they said, we're
11:46
Speaker 1: not giving you fifty thousand florins. What you We thought
11:49
Speaker 1: you were going to get rid of these rets through
11:51
Speaker 1: hard work. You just played some flute, Like that's cool
11:53
Speaker 1: that you can do that with the flute, but that's
11:55
Speaker 1: not really work. So no, we're not gonna pay you
11:58
Speaker 1: fifty thousand florence. He's like, well, in a thousand florins
12:02
Speaker 1: at least that's what I originally agreed to. And they're like,
12:04
Speaker 1: how about this. We're gonna give you fifty and if
12:07
Speaker 1: you're not happy with that, then you're getting nothing. And
12:10
Speaker 1: he was still so mad that they're like, fine, nothing,
12:13
Speaker 1: get out of town. And he says, you will regret
12:17
Speaker 1: you know what that's like. That's like highering the critter
12:19
Speaker 1: remover because you have a raccoon in your attic. You
12:23
Speaker 1: agree to a price. He comes over and shoots the
12:25
Speaker 1: raccoon and says game over, and you're like, wait a minute.
12:29
Speaker 1: I expected a little more like uh, like you were
12:32
Speaker 1: going to hypnotize him or or coax him down from
12:34
Speaker 1: the roof with your smooth jazz. Right, not just shoot it.
12:39
Speaker 1: Anybody could shoot it. I thought you're gonna like step
12:41
Speaker 1: on it or something. Yeah, Like I would have shot it.
12:44
Speaker 1: Looking for a peaceful, less solution right in place, I
12:47
Speaker 1: have a bullet hole in my house. Now have you
12:49
Speaker 1: ever had to call one of those people a raccoon remover? Well,
12:52
Speaker 1: I'll just you know those dudes, just like you know,
12:55
Speaker 1: I'll do snakes and raccoons or whatever. I haven't either,
12:59
Speaker 1: but a lot of my friends do that. I'm over one.
13:02
Speaker 1: I think I mentioned with cockroaches right now, and it's
13:05
Speaker 1: just it's getting bad still, Yeah, dude, because I don't
13:08
Speaker 1: know what to do. Hire an exterminator. Yeah, but we're
13:12
Speaker 1: not into the poison stuff. But I think it's like,
13:14
Speaker 1: we gotta do it. I think there's green exterminators that
13:17
Speaker 1: are not quite as deadly. Jerry's nodding, But will they
13:20
Speaker 1: kill all the cockroaches? Probably? Probably? You probably with their
13:26
Speaker 1: magic flute, and I need to do something. It's gotten
13:29
Speaker 1: out of hand. Yeah, you got to do something, like
13:32
Speaker 1: I almost I'm gonna tell you what happens, but I
13:36
Speaker 1: feel like people judge me on how disgusting it is.
13:39
Speaker 1: We can always edit it out later, all right. I'll
13:41
Speaker 1: go in and and this is not like it's not
13:43
Speaker 1: like food is out. I will clean the kitchen. I
13:46
Speaker 1: will go in there to get a glass of water.
13:48
Speaker 1: At midnight, I'll turn the light on and a dozen
13:52
Speaker 1: will scatter. Jerry's geting, Nope, like I will just I
13:56
Speaker 1: will hear them going, sure, Yeah, that's one of the
13:59
Speaker 1: creepiest things. And they you know, as soon as they
14:01
Speaker 1: see that light, they're gone. And it sounds like we
14:03
Speaker 1: live in filth. But it doesn't matter. We're infested. They're
14:06
Speaker 1: just like, I don't know what to do. Yeah, well, um,
14:10
Speaker 1: I think you may want to call an exterminator, but fine,
14:13
Speaker 1: one you live into cator. I'm sure you'd be hard
14:16
Speaker 1: pestifind an exterminator that did use deadly You throw a
14:19
Speaker 1: rock indicator and you'll hit a dust So I yes,
14:24
Speaker 1: I think it might be time. All right, Sorry about
14:28
Speaker 1: getting sidetracks so much. They offer him, what fifty fifty
14:32
Speaker 1: not even not fifty thou or a thousand fifty? And
14:35
Speaker 1: so what does he say? He says, but he did
14:39
Speaker 1: that little everybody. You can't see me, but you know
14:41
Speaker 1: where you flick the underside of your chain, that feel
14:44
Speaker 1: like that's Italian? Well, I mean this is Germany, it's
14:47
Speaker 1: Lower Saxony. It wasn't too far from Germany. But is
14:49
Speaker 1: that Italian? I was just wondering. Yeah, it feels like
14:52
Speaker 1: a very like Italian thing to do. Yeah, okay, right exactly.
14:56
Speaker 1: You gotta say it like that, all right. So he
14:59
Speaker 1: gives him that number and says I'm gonna come back.
15:02
Speaker 1: Does he even warn them and say I'm gonna come
15:03
Speaker 1: back and get your kids or I'm just gonna it
15:05
Speaker 1: depends on it's all good, you'll see me again. It
15:08
Speaker 1: depends on the story. Some say, yeah, he vowed vengeance.
15:12
Speaker 1: Some say he came back a month later. Some say
15:13
Speaker 1: he came back a year later. Some say he just
15:15
Speaker 1: immediately started playing his flute. Some say, and I think
15:19
Speaker 1: the brothers grim version is that he waited until the
15:22
Speaker 1: town went to sleep, and then came through the town
15:25
Speaker 1: and started playing again. All right, but this time he's
15:28
Speaker 1: wearing Hunter's clothing. Did not see that anywhere? Oh? Really
15:33
Speaker 1: does that? Bs? Well? I don't think it's b S.
15:36
Speaker 1: I think this story has just been added to so
15:38
Speaker 1: many times over there. But yeah, I shouldn't have ever
15:40
Speaker 1: been to anything. All right, So he comes back regardless
15:43
Speaker 1: of what he's wearing. Let's say he's buck naked, which
15:45
Speaker 1: makes it even more fun. Well, you just added to
15:47
Speaker 1: the legend just there. He starts playing this flute again,
15:50
Speaker 1: but this time the children are entranced. He leads like
15:55
Speaker 1: a hundred and thirty kids supposedly, Yeah, paying attention to
15:58
Speaker 1: a number. It seems a little specific, doesn't it does.
16:01
Speaker 1: He leads a hundred and thirty children out of town
16:04
Speaker 1: up a mountain to a cave. They supposedly enter and
16:08
Speaker 1: are never heard from again, right, And the mountain has
16:12
Speaker 1: a landslide and covers up the cave mouth, and supposedly
16:16
Speaker 1: it was a magical door that opened in the mountain
16:20
Speaker 1: that revealed the key. They go in, doors closed, landslide gone,
16:25
Speaker 1: never heard from again, like you said, And the townspeople
16:27
Speaker 1: are like, there goes our labor pool, there goes my baby,
16:32
Speaker 1: there goes their labor pool. Who's going to service at
16:35
Speaker 1: the beer gardens? And supposedly there in one version, at
16:38
Speaker 1: least um there was the mayor's grown daughter was among
16:43
Speaker 1: that group, and this feels like a specific jab at
16:46
Speaker 1: the mayor, like even though your daughter's grown, I'm gonna
16:50
Speaker 1: and transfer with my flute as well. Yeah, well I
16:53
Speaker 1: don't think that was in the original Grand Brothers one either,
16:56
Speaker 1: But but two children survived correct or they come back,
16:59
Speaker 1: I think. And the Grimm Brothers version is just one.
17:02
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's up to three. But there there's in a
17:05
Speaker 1: lot of retellings, there's a kid who either Um is
17:09
Speaker 1: deaf and so can't hear the magic flute song, so
17:13
Speaker 1: it's not entranced. Um has some sort of physical disability,
17:18
Speaker 1: and so he or she can't keep up with the
17:20
Speaker 1: rest of the kids and survives from that um or
17:25
Speaker 1: I think it's blind and can't see their way. Either way,
17:29
Speaker 1: some kid who had some unique characteristic that kept them
17:33
Speaker 1: from being um entranced or whatever. Uh is like the
17:39
Speaker 1: eyewitness that comes back and tells the parents what happened,
17:42
Speaker 1: or in another version, is just a skeptic child skeptic.
17:46
Speaker 1: This can't be happening. Louis the child's skipt um. That's funny.
17:55
Speaker 1: So all right, so let's get into this. It may
17:58
Speaker 1: not to be fictions, as it turns out, because a
18:02
Speaker 1: lot of historians and scholars have looked into this. You
18:04
Speaker 1: talked about the specificity being a little weird. One thing
18:08
Speaker 1: we do know is that at one point there was
18:10
Speaker 1: a stained glass window in the in the town church
18:14
Speaker 1: um that depicted and this was what around thirteen hundreds
18:18
Speaker 1: is after it would have happened, but I mean sixteen
18:21
Speaker 1: years in memory, living memory, it was when they first
18:25
Speaker 1: erected that window, which kind of makes sense as a memorial. Uh.
18:29
Speaker 1: And on that window it said on the day of
18:32
Speaker 1: John Paul, I'm sorry John and Paul. One thirty children
18:35
Speaker 1: in Hamlin went to Calvary were brought through all kinds
18:39
Speaker 1: of danger to the copin mountain and lost. Yeah. So
18:44
Speaker 1: the Calvary thing that I thought was another word for Heaven,
18:49
Speaker 1: isn't it. I'm gone, I'm going to Calvary in that
18:52
Speaker 1: was like in that like the hill where was crucified.
18:58
Speaker 1: If I know this, surely you know used to know this.
19:01
Speaker 1: I know it looms large and and Christianity, but I
19:04
Speaker 1: can't remember exactly. I think it's like shorthand for I'm
19:06
Speaker 1: going to meet my maker. I saw elsewhere that they
19:10
Speaker 1: referred to the mountain as cavalry. Yeah. They also referred
19:14
Speaker 1: to the area that the children went to Calvary as
19:17
Speaker 1: the execution place. I never saw any explanation of that.
19:21
Speaker 1: And then the copp And Mountain. I don't understand why
19:24
Speaker 1: that would be also named Calvary, and they would mention
19:27
Speaker 1: at the same place twice with two different names. So
19:30
Speaker 1: it's a bit of a mystery. But the point is,
19:32
Speaker 1: about fifteen sixteen years after this event supposedly happened, or
19:37
Speaker 1: the fairy tale takes place, the town of Hamlin, Germany
19:41
Speaker 1: in um Lower Saxony or West Falley, I think is
19:45
Speaker 1: what it's called now, put put up of stained glass
19:49
Speaker 1: window commemorating this and the window did not survive, but
19:52
Speaker 1: apparently there are accounts of that window, yeah, like in
19:56
Speaker 1: more than one place. Yeah, and it was I mean
19:58
Speaker 1: you can understand that it would be because it was
20:00
Speaker 1: in the town church for hundreds of years before it
20:02
Speaker 1: was destroyed. No one knows how it was destroyed, but
20:04
Speaker 1: there is documentation that this window existed. Obviously, no living
20:09
Speaker 1: historians saw it with their own eyes, but there's enough,
20:13
Speaker 1: um documentary evidence that it seems to be. Yes, there
20:16
Speaker 1: was a window that was erected in That is a
20:19
Speaker 1: very weird thing to do to just make up right,
20:22
Speaker 1: very weird, um, especially in the church. Yeah, you don't
20:27
Speaker 1: why you go to hell for that? So that was
20:31
Speaker 1: that was the first documentary evidence, right. The next one
20:35
Speaker 1: I saw comes a hundred years later in four and
20:40
Speaker 1: um it's in the Hamlin Town Chronicle for that year,
20:43
Speaker 1: and all it says is it is one hundred years
20:46
Speaker 1: since our children left. Yeah. Kind of weird. And what
20:51
Speaker 1: is that just a blurb? I guess so you'd think
20:53
Speaker 1: a hundred year commemoration they might add a little more
20:56
Speaker 1: than that. Yeah, and what is this the Luneberg Manu's
21:00
Speaker 1: script This was about a hundred years after the window.
21:04
Speaker 1: And this was a monk who wrote it, Heinrich of Hereford,
21:08
Speaker 1: and he says, he writes an account and says a
21:11
Speaker 1: man about thirty years old came to town playing a
21:14
Speaker 1: flute and lead the children out. Yeah, pretty simple. Yeah,
21:18
Speaker 1: but what's noteworthy about that one. There's a couple of things. Um,
21:23
Speaker 1: So the the piper doesn't show up in the first
21:28
Speaker 1: in the window, right, but he does show up in
21:32
Speaker 1: the Lumberg manuscript. He mentions the piper. But no rats
21:37
Speaker 1: in any of these, right, not yet. But the other
21:40
Speaker 1: thing about the Lumberg manuscript is that it Looomberg is
21:43
Speaker 1: a nearby town. So there are other towns that are
21:46
Speaker 1: talking about this event that happened in their own chronicles. Right,
21:51
Speaker 1: it was one of the reasons why. But it supports
21:54
Speaker 1: the idea that it's real, because if it's just this
21:56
Speaker 1: one town that's deluded, even if other towns are talking
22:00
Speaker 1: about it, they'll probably be by the way, they're all nuts.
22:03
Speaker 1: But other towns chronicles seemed to be verifying that this
22:08
Speaker 1: happened or recounting this story in like a credulous way.
22:11
Speaker 1: So something happened in twelve eighty four, and the evidence
22:14
Speaker 1: is starting to mount. Um. But the other thing about
22:16
Speaker 1: the fact that this is another town is that this
22:19
Speaker 1: town Loomburg and other towns. Um cited that Hambling came
22:24
Speaker 1: to be known to commemorate things counting backward or forward
22:31
Speaker 1: from the date of twelve eighty four. So, for example,
22:35
Speaker 1: they put up a gate in fifteen fifty six in
22:38
Speaker 1: the town. This is what they inscribed on the gate,
22:41
Speaker 1: chuck uh In this year of fifteen fifty six, two
22:45
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy two years after the magician led a
22:48
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty children out of the town, this portal
22:51
Speaker 1: was erected. That's like saying, like this, we're putting up
22:55
Speaker 1: the sewer two hundred and sixty two years after our
22:58
Speaker 1: children were led out of town by a magician. Enjoy
23:00
Speaker 1: the sewer. Like, that's a weird thing to inscribe in something.
23:04
Speaker 1: And apparently the town became known for that kind of thing.
23:08
Speaker 1: What just these random inscriptions about this weird, like mysterious event. Yeah,
23:13
Speaker 1: just like dating everything from twelve eighty four on based
23:17
Speaker 1: on their their children leaving. And again you'll notice it
23:20
Speaker 1: mentions a hundred and thirty children. Things changed over the retelling.
23:24
Speaker 1: But the one thing that's remained the same is the
23:27
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty children leaving. Even before the piper shows
23:31
Speaker 1: up in the story, a hundred and thirty children are
23:33
Speaker 1: cited each and every time. Yeah, but in what we
23:35
Speaker 1: don't know is that, like some symbolic things, that all metaphor. Um.
23:41
Speaker 1: Should we take a break and get to the theories,
23:43
Speaker 1: all right, let's do that, all right. The theories are varied, Um.
24:13
Speaker 1: One of the common ones makes that makes a lot
24:17
Speaker 1: of sense is that there was some disease that killed
24:19
Speaker 1: all these kids, and then this story is some sort
24:22
Speaker 1: of metaphor for what happened to their children. And the
24:26
Speaker 1: fact that rats come into play at some point have
24:28
Speaker 1: led people to speculate that it might be the bubonic plague. Yeah,
24:32
Speaker 1: there's a guy named um, Count Froben Christoph von Zimmer.
24:37
Speaker 1: Can you say it like that? Frob Now? I don't know,
24:40
Speaker 1: but I know that that guy will steal your soul
24:42
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night if you're not careful. Yeah, so,
24:47
Speaker 1: Count Froben Christoph von Zimmer. You can only say all
24:50
Speaker 1: of his names, You can't her. He wrote a chronicle
24:54
Speaker 1: in five from another nearby town and he was the
24:58
Speaker 1: one who seems to event produced the rats. And so
25:02
Speaker 1: at that point the piper goes from just a weirdo
25:05
Speaker 1: magician to ratt and fonger, Yeah, rat catcher, Yeah, which
25:10
Speaker 1: was a job, it was, And I mean like like
25:13
Speaker 1: this town would have had rats, Any town would have
25:15
Speaker 1: had rats, So it would have been, like, it's understandable
25:18
Speaker 1: like that the rats would come into it, and it's
25:21
Speaker 1: not like that's just, you know, a totally outlandish addition
25:25
Speaker 1: to the story. But the fact that it doesn't show
25:27
Speaker 1: up until fifteen sixty five, and this has been documented
25:31
Speaker 1: for hundreds of years up to that point, seems a
25:33
Speaker 1: little fishy. And it certainly seems weird that it would
25:37
Speaker 1: have been the plague because the play couldn't come around yet,
25:39
Speaker 1: right right, And it also seems fishy that it doesn't
25:42
Speaker 1: mention anything about adults and any sort of rat carrying
25:46
Speaker 1: or diseased rat would it seems like it wouldn't just
25:50
Speaker 1: affect kids. No, it doesn't make any sense, No, it doesn't.
25:54
Speaker 1: But the idea that a hundred and thirty kids were
25:57
Speaker 1: taken from the town in one four or fashion, you
26:02
Speaker 1: could say, well, it's like some sort of disease. One
26:05
Speaker 1: of the other diseases that got um put up was
26:09
Speaker 1: Parkinson's I believe or no, Huntington's I'm sorry, which is
26:13
Speaker 1: a stupid theory. It's a terrible theory. Huntington's disease is
26:18
Speaker 1: an inherited disease, so that would mean that every kid
26:21
Speaker 1: in the town had inherited Huntington's from their parents, who
26:24
Speaker 1: apparently weren't showing any symptoms. I don't know, I couldn't
26:27
Speaker 1: find it, but it's a terrible one. And then the
26:30
Speaker 1: idea that so it's not infectious, it's rare, and everybody's
26:34
Speaker 1: symptoms coming on at the same time in dying. The
26:38
Speaker 1: reason why they said that, though, was because supposedly um
26:42
Speaker 1: the shakes from it, the palsy, would account for the
26:46
Speaker 1: dancing of the children. It seems like a pretty dumb
26:50
Speaker 1: thing to zero in stretch Huntington disease were crossing off
26:53
Speaker 1: the list all right. One of my favorites is that
26:56
Speaker 1: the children left on their own as part of one
26:59
Speaker 1: of the crusades. And apparently the one thing that doesn't
27:03
Speaker 1: quite align is the timeline, because a few decades previous
27:08
Speaker 1: there were in fact young people children probably teenagers, doctor
27:13
Speaker 1: were like eight year old participating in the crusades, one
27:16
Speaker 1: of them would have a vision from God and say,
27:19
Speaker 1: you know, we should totally cover the crusades. I don't
27:22
Speaker 1: think we have we done that? No, not yet. There's
27:24
Speaker 1: a really good article on the site too, would be
27:26
Speaker 1: it's a pretty dense single. Yeah, we might do too.
27:31
Speaker 1: Two part are on the crusades coming. Uh, So you
27:35
Speaker 1: would you know, one of those kids would have a
27:36
Speaker 1: vision from God and then all the kids would follow
27:39
Speaker 1: and say, all right, when we take our broadswords that
27:43
Speaker 1: we can barely lift and go fight the good fight. Right.
27:46
Speaker 1: So that's one theory, and that's actually a pretty uh
27:49
Speaker 1: it's that that's a little more rooted in reality. Like, yes,
27:53
Speaker 1: there were children's crusade before documented. It's possible it happened
27:58
Speaker 1: a decade or two later. Like if if it was
28:02
Speaker 1: in the area and well known, some other kid could
28:04
Speaker 1: have been like, okay, let me try my hand at it,
28:07
Speaker 1: changes his name to Jim Jones and says follow me
28:10
Speaker 1: to Jerusalem. Right, So that that one could have happened.
28:13
Speaker 1: It's possible. Um the other one, and this is supposedly
28:17
Speaker 1: the most widely held theory. Chuck was that this is
28:20
Speaker 1: all part of the oh sedlung o S. This is
28:26
Speaker 1: a tongue twister O S T s I E D
28:30
Speaker 1: l u n G, which is basically an exodus or
28:34
Speaker 1: an eastward expansion from Germany to Transylvania, Romania area which
28:42
Speaker 1: was being newly settled by um Western Europeans after conquering,
28:49
Speaker 1: like the whole Dracula era. So the idea is an
28:52
Speaker 1: adult came and said, hey, kids, why don't you come
28:55
Speaker 1: with me and we'll we'll go like populate eastern Europe
28:59
Speaker 1: pretty much right right, so um, and there is evidence
29:03
Speaker 1: that this this did like this definitely happened, right, there
29:06
Speaker 1: was a migration eastward. Um. And the big thing about
29:11
Speaker 1: this one is that they were misinterpreting the word kids
29:13
Speaker 1: or children that it could have been the town's children.
29:18
Speaker 1: But it's like their their children, they weren't kids. They
29:21
Speaker 1: were you know, young adults who were who would have
29:24
Speaker 1: represented like, you know, a lot of the workforce. So
29:26
Speaker 1: that would have been a big deal had they left.
29:29
Speaker 1: So that's a that's I think the most widely held
29:32
Speaker 1: one right now. Well, one of the traditions you're hanging
29:34
Speaker 1: onto is uh and I kind of teased it with
29:37
Speaker 1: that dumb bano jerk jerk, poor Bono, he's like that
29:46
Speaker 1: bono joke earlier is uh today still Um. The street
29:51
Speaker 1: where this supposedly all happened, um is called the bungalowsan
29:57
Speaker 1: Sasa street with no drum, street without drums, And to
30:01
Speaker 1: this day they won't allow people to play music or
30:04
Speaker 1: dance on that street. Right, the rest of the town
30:07
Speaker 1: and including that street, but really the rest of the
30:08
Speaker 1: town is the whole town is dedicated to this legend. Um.
30:14
Speaker 1: I thought you dedicated to music and dancing. Well, I'm
30:17
Speaker 1: except for the street they do. There is a musical
30:19
Speaker 1: called Rats that's put on in the town seriously, um.
30:24
Speaker 1: And there's there's like a pie piper statue and recreations
30:28
Speaker 1: every Sunday in the summer. Oh yeah, it's huge tourist
30:31
Speaker 1: town for this. Um. There's like a I think a
30:35
Speaker 1: Rats blug cocktails that they serve. I saw. It's like
30:38
Speaker 1: a mental falss article. I mentioned that. But Um, the
30:42
Speaker 1: town is dedicated to this. But there's there's the fact
30:45
Speaker 1: that they're still talking about it is not just legend,
30:49
Speaker 1: it's um. It's like they're they're still telling that story
30:54
Speaker 1: to an extent, you know what I mean, keeping it alive,
30:57
Speaker 1: not just for tourist dollars because it looms large because
31:02
Speaker 1: this is their ancestry. Well, they definitely, Um. There are
31:07
Speaker 1: some more um theories that haven't gained as much traction,
31:10
Speaker 1: Like there was a pedophile that came. Um, these children
31:13
Speaker 1: were just maybe just simply sent away because they're very poor.
31:17
Speaker 1: Because that happened. That's my theory that that was just
31:20
Speaker 1: sort of the regular thing that would happen. Is we're
31:22
Speaker 1: also poor, you go away and live a better life somewhere. Yeah,
31:26
Speaker 1: And that's where Hansel and Gretel is kind of rooted
31:28
Speaker 1: in reality, the idea of child abandonment. Remember we talked
31:31
Speaker 1: about that. I believe in the in one of the
31:34
Speaker 1: fairy Tale episodes from before that like if you fell
31:38
Speaker 1: on hard times, just taking your kid out to the
31:40
Speaker 1: woods and being like, best of luck. It was a
31:43
Speaker 1: viable thing to do during the Middle Ages. And it's
31:46
Speaker 1: possible that this town, basically said it would be like
31:49
Speaker 1: a combination of the guy coming from Romania and saying
31:52
Speaker 1: follow me, and the parents being like, maybe you should
31:56
Speaker 1: go with him, And then that would explain why the
32:00
Speaker 1: whole thing is written in like such vague, flowery language.
32:04
Speaker 1: To me, that indicates that they're they're working out guilt.
32:08
Speaker 1: There's guilt by this town vague. They're not direct. Other
32:12
Speaker 1: towns are talking about this legend in much more explicit terms,
32:16
Speaker 1: But in the town of Hamlin, it's all very like
32:19
Speaker 1: like flowery and and poetic and vague, And it makes
32:23
Speaker 1: me think they're they're covering something up that they have
32:27
Speaker 1: to get off their chest, but they're still they can't
32:30
Speaker 1: bring themselves to actually say what it was. Well, that
32:33
Speaker 1: sort of jibes then with um, this dude, he's a
32:37
Speaker 1: children's poet named Michael Rosen. He sent that one article.
32:40
Speaker 1: He actually went to Hamlin and hooked up with a
32:43
Speaker 1: guy named Michael Boyer from the tourism office there, and
32:48
Speaker 1: Boyer says that he thinks the rats were added and
32:51
Speaker 1: this this makes sense with your theory. Was that just
32:55
Speaker 1: sort of an attempt to wash away what he said,
32:57
Speaker 1: we're bad memories, like a ever up to draw attention
33:01
Speaker 1: away from this awful thing. They're like, hey, let's tell
33:03
Speaker 1: this rat story, right, But if you'll notice also in
33:07
Speaker 1: that story with the rats there there is guilt by
33:12
Speaker 1: the town. The town is guilty of something and they
33:15
Speaker 1: lose their children as a result. So if the rats
33:19
Speaker 1: were actually part of the original story, even if it
33:21
Speaker 1: wasn't documented, even if there weren't real rats, it still
33:25
Speaker 1: is putting some veneer of guilt onto the town. It
33:29
Speaker 1: wasn't something that just happened to them. This thing befell
33:32
Speaker 1: them because they did something wrong. I don't I feel
33:35
Speaker 1: like there could be a deeper mystery though, Yeah, I
33:37
Speaker 1: think there is. Like, for real, I think there's something
33:39
Speaker 1: really happened in Hamlin in twelve eighty four and they
33:43
Speaker 1: lost a hundred and thirty kids somehow, and the town
33:47
Speaker 1: it was psychically damaged by it. Are you going to
33:50
Speaker 1: title this one pie Piper colon cold case? That's a
33:54
Speaker 1: good one. Actually not? Okay, you got anything else? No?
33:58
Speaker 1: Now I want to know more. I know I got
34:01
Speaker 1: sucked into this. I can't remember which of the articles
34:04
Speaker 1: I sent it got me, but I don't remember how
34:06
Speaker 1: I came across it, but it was it was like, oh,
34:08
Speaker 1: I've never thought of this, And it's not like you
34:11
Speaker 1: can do this with every um fairy tale. Right there's
34:16
Speaker 1: you know, there's there's probably no rapondola and probably no
34:20
Speaker 1: rumple Stiltskin, Hansel and Gretel's just so vague. Probably happened
34:23
Speaker 1: to multiple children, but this one, this happened in Hamlin
34:27
Speaker 1: in twelve eighty four. Something happened. We may never know
34:31
Speaker 1: what it was, but it's pretty interesting. My mind goes
34:34
Speaker 1: really dark and thinks, like, what if there was just
34:35
Speaker 1: a mass murder? Well, one more thing, one more thing.
34:40
Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought that up. So the execution place
34:43
Speaker 1: that the Coppin Mountain or Cavalry Mountain or whatever it was,
34:47
Speaker 1: supposedly that was where they buried people too, So they
34:51
Speaker 1: were saying that could be code for a mass grave
34:54
Speaker 1: where they would have buried people, which would suggest a
34:57
Speaker 1: mass death that happened in a short period of time. Man,
35:02
Speaker 1: can you imagine if there was a discovery made of
35:05
Speaker 1: children's bones in a mountains somewhere north of Hamlin to
35:09
Speaker 1: be neat nor because it's mountains, I just think that
35:13
Speaker 1: means they're north. So one more you keep bringing up
35:15
Speaker 1: this awesome stuff, dude, you ready, I'm ready. They recently
35:19
Speaker 1: discovered I think they discovered it a while back, but
35:22
Speaker 1: they recently publicized that the discovery of a and believe
35:27
Speaker 1: it was. It was definitely in Peru. It wasn't Incan.
35:30
Speaker 1: It was one of the Incan's rivals, the Inca rivals Um.
35:35
Speaker 1: But it was a mass sacrifice of hundreds of kids
35:39
Speaker 1: that all happened on one day, one after the other.
35:43
Speaker 1: It was and like they found this and you're reading it,
35:46
Speaker 1: and you're like, this probably has never happened in the
35:49
Speaker 1: history of the world anything like this, Nothing like this.
35:52
Speaker 1: I mean this they were probably child side or they
35:54
Speaker 1: were definitely child sacrifices, but they would do it like
35:57
Speaker 1: once in a while or something. But imagine a town
36:00
Speaker 1: gone that berserk that they just let their kids, Like
36:04
Speaker 1: hundreds of kids just killed in a day in one area.
36:08
Speaker 1: It was. It's really rough, man, it's but reading about it,
36:12
Speaker 1: it's I mean, it's just too you can't help but
36:15
Speaker 1: pull yourself back into that day and just see it
36:18
Speaker 1: and want to be like, stop, what are you doing?
36:20
Speaker 1: You've lost your mind? You know. And if it happened once,
36:22
Speaker 1: it could happen again. I guess you know, maybe the
36:25
Speaker 1: parents were all uh, maybe they all drank bad beer
36:29
Speaker 1: one day. Yeah, it made him temporarily insane. That'd be
36:33
Speaker 1: really bad. It sounds like a a Blumhouse movie to Come.
36:37
Speaker 1: What is that? It's just that production company that makes
36:40
Speaker 1: a lot of the horror movies. Now what like what
36:43
Speaker 1: I think they did get out among many others? Good? Okay,
36:48
Speaker 1: you've got anything else? Now I got nothing else, Jerry, No, okay. Well,
36:52
Speaker 1: if you want to know more about the pie Piper
36:54
Speaker 1: and all that stuff, you can type that word in
36:57
Speaker 1: the search bar how stuff works dot com. And since
36:59
Speaker 1: I said that, it's time the listener mail. I'm gonna
37:03
Speaker 1: call this a double Keen Signeta reply because you heard
37:07
Speaker 1: from a couple of people with some good insight. First, Alexandra,
37:11
Speaker 1: longtime listener from San Juan, Puerto Rico, loved episode on
37:14
Speaker 1: Kensaneta's It's usual. You did a great job approaching a
37:18
Speaker 1: cultural tradition but it's not your own, while providing a
37:22
Speaker 1: balanced information, well rounded and textualization of the celebration and
37:26
Speaker 1: its influence. She's like in parnhses it was the opposite
37:30
Speaker 1: of the episode. Oh man, we've gotten beat up about that.
37:35
Speaker 1: For my own Keen Signetta, my mother gave me the
37:37
Speaker 1: option of the traditional coming of age party or a trip.
37:43
Speaker 1: What do you think she chose? I'm guessing a trip yeah,
37:46
Speaker 1: I chose to travel and spent a month in Germany
37:48
Speaker 1: this summer I turned fifteen. Looking back, it's amazing that
37:51
Speaker 1: she trusted me enough at such a young age travel
37:53
Speaker 1: on my own, although I did stay with family. She's like,
37:56
Speaker 1: it's the greatest regret of my young life. I wish
37:59
Speaker 1: I would have partied. Uh. I just wanted to clarify
38:02
Speaker 1: a few things you brought up. Um, l A T
38:05
Speaker 1: I n X is pronounced, she says, Latin X. Uh.
38:09
Speaker 1: It refers to those from Latin America or Latin American descent.
38:12
Speaker 1: Hispanic refers to Spanish speaking persons. Oh and your pronunciation
38:16
Speaker 1: of kintanana was great, as the r a is a
38:20
Speaker 1: soft our sound. Um, no need to read this on
38:23
Speaker 1: the podcast, sorry, Alexandra. Uh. And then this other follow
38:27
Speaker 1: up I want this guy says, this is tiban Plinsky.
38:33
Speaker 1: I recognize that name. I think he's on Twitter or something.
38:35
Speaker 1: Oh really, yeah, great name. He's local, is she said? Disclaimer,
38:39
Speaker 1: I'm a white person from Georgia, so I have no
38:42
Speaker 1: authority here at all, but we'll be referring to the
38:44
Speaker 1: opinions of actual Latino Latina Latin X people I know
38:50
Speaker 1: or have read the writings of I personally only heard
38:53
Speaker 1: that word pronounced with confidence in the following two ways,
38:56
Speaker 1: latin X and latin X. However, some people say latin
39:01
Speaker 1: X or latins Latino X sounds right because it's Latino
39:08
Speaker 1: Latina latin X, Yeah, that makes sense, or LATINX rhymes
39:12
Speaker 1: with sphinx Um. I don't think that's right, or something
39:15
Speaker 1: else entirely, as evidenced by this Twitter poll and he
39:19
Speaker 1: shared the Twitter poll, which was from a media brand
39:22
Speaker 1: for Latino millennials. Interestingly, there appears to be backlash against
39:25
Speaker 1: the term by some who view it as an attempt
39:28
Speaker 1: intentional or not to anglicize Spanish. They say this is
39:33
Speaker 1: part of a larger movement to paint Hispanic, Latino, Latina
39:37
Speaker 1: latin X people as sexist and ignorant. Mexican American person
39:42
Speaker 1: who introduced me to the term was still sorting out
39:45
Speaker 1: their feelings about the whole situation. Uh so that's where
39:49
Speaker 1: we step steps into uh taibon plinsky. Uh. If you
39:55
Speaker 1: want to get in touch of this, like Tie and
39:57
Speaker 1: Alexandra did, you can tweet to us. I'm josh Um
40:00
Speaker 1: Clark and at s Y s K podcast and Chuck's
40:03
Speaker 1: at movie Crush. You can join Chuck on Facebook at
40:07
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com, slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and slash
40:10
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know. You can send us all an email.
40:12
Speaker 1: The Stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com and
40:15
Speaker 1: has always joined us our home on the web, Stuff
40:17
Speaker 1: you Should Know dot com. For more on this and
40:24
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, is it how stuff Works dot
40:27
Speaker 1: com