The pied piper's origins

Willot François Willot.Francois at ec-lille.fr
Fri Apr 19 15:46:41 CEST 2002


Some elements of answer:

Closely related to the question of the legend's origins is the problem of
ascertaining
which of the known variants of the story preceded the others. The earliest
written
documentation of the story is found in a chronicle of events in the Hamelin
area dating
from the middle of the fifteenth century. It should be noted that there is
an inevitable
time lag between the genesis of a legend in folkloric tradition and the
first time it is
recorded in writing. Carl Zuckmayer, whose last play, Der Rattenfänger,
presents a
modern interpretation of the Pied Piper, argues that the story as told by
the inscription
on the Rattenfängerhaus antedates all other extant versions. His view is
consistent with
the following considerations. First, no other version of the tale refers to
so early a date
as the 26th of June, 1284. (The source Browning drew upon when composing The
Pied
Piper of Hamelin makes reference to the 22nd of July, 1376). It is
interesting to
speculate whether Browning knew of the date cited in the first story, as the
year in
which he composed this poem is a numerical anagram of 1284. Second, myths
and
folktales commonly grow from simple fables to complex stories incorporating
strands
derived from various sources. Research indicates that the story of a
ratcatcher who rid
Hamelin of its troublesome rodents goes back to the time of the Black Death.
In his
article A Plaguey Piper in The Lancet, D. Wolfers suggests that the Pied
Piper's "gipsy
coat of red and yellow" in Browning's famous poem points back to the skin
discolorations produced by the bubonic plague. By the late Middle Ages the
Piper had
merged with the figure of Death as the leader of la danse macabre or the
Dance of
Death. Prosper Merimée betrays his awareness of the Piper's negative
associations in
his historical novel Chronique du régne de Charles IX (1829). A gipsy girl
retells
the story of the Pied Piper to a company of German soldiers bound for Paris,
where trouble
is brewing. The tale ominously portends the massacre on Saint Bartholomew's
Eve in
August, 1572. Is it a coincidence that both Merimée's story and the original
tale recount
what happened on a saints' day? 

(From an article in Wascana Review, English Department, University of
Regina, Canada, 1985) 



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