It's Time to Pay the Piper: The *Possibly* True Story Pied Piper of Hamelin

Surprise. How's everyone doing They can't answer me. They can't answer, but I'm sure they're doing well. Welcome to Scary Mystery Surprise, where we talk about scary things that surprised us around the Internet. I'm Edwin. I'm Michelle Edwin. Have you ever heard the term it's time to pay the piper? I have not. Is that too common it's a common phrase? Should I say yes, you've never heard it's time to pay the piper? I might have a just never really never thought about it. Basically just means you got to keep your half of the bargain. It's time to pay your debts. Oh, I see, time to pay up? Kinda. So that phrase comes from the story of the Pied Piper of Hamlin or the Ratcatcher of Hamlin Dun dun dum. Okay. I like the first one. More the Pied Piper, Yeah, the ratcatchers. Rat catcher is a pretty literal, and also like, yeah, rats, there's a lot of rats in this story. What you got Hamlin, Germany, twelve hundred and eighty four. So way back there, we're way in the Middle Ages right now. Whoa, I don't think I've ever heard anything about the twelve hundreds. Oh yeah, it's that old. The town of Hamlin, which is in Germany, was suffering from a rat infestation, you know, the plague and all that. Rats. Just imagining them, oh jeezy, I know, I can just imagine them running through the streets and yeah, people were dirty er back then. I think geez ah, and I hate rats. Yeah, okay, yeah, rats are disgusting. The worst part of the story is the rat. Anyway, the town is suffering. It's gross. We all know how ros rats are. Everybody's grossed out. A mysterious piper dressed in multi colored pie, which is what pied means clothing, appears claiming to be a ratcatcher. So a mysterious guy dressed like a clown. Yeah, basically I wrote pause for description, but I guess pied p i ed clothing in the Middle Ages was a symbol of lowly status. So if you wore colorful clothing like a lot of entertainers wore colorful clothing, like an executioner would wear colorful clothing, that's an interesting image, isn't that weird? Yeah? What wait? So does it mean like it's the style or well, in all the drawings they show like those shoes with the curled up toes, you know, Okay, and I imagine there's probably some bells just so he jingles like a jack in the box. Yeah, like a jack in the box. Like I imagine it's kind of like that. And then I wrote, what is it? Pied clothing symbol of a lowly status weirdo. For some reason, I always imagined the pied piper not really having a flute, but like having a really long nose and just playing, like playing music, like going like like that's how I always imagine it. Michelle, how do you do that? What? Okay? So people can't see you, but I was playing my nose like the pied piper was what. Okay, this was the coolest thing I've ever seen. So you just maybe me blowing my nose. Wait, let me pick a more classical song. So anyway, the pied piper, it is weird outfit playing his nose. I think it's because I'm a nasally talker. So it's like up here anyway, Okay, so you cover one of your nostrils and you just hum. Look, it's a gift. What could I say? It's a gift as God given talent and I'm so happy I could share it all with you today. So that explains why you imagine him like that. But like I imagine him with a really long nose. Okay, I just imagined flute as a term quote unquote for his weird nose. So anyway, that's how I imagine the pied Piper who's just shown up. We just walked into town, into this rat town with his weird nose and weird shoes and his jingle jack in the box outfit. He promises the mayor a solution to their problem with the rat by play his magical flute his nose, possibly his nose, and the Mayor's like, uh, sure, yeah, if you can do that, I'll give you a thousand guilders if you do it. Weirdo. The Piper's like he he jingle jingle, He's just bouncing away, and so he started to play his magical flute, and the music was so sweet it lured every rat in the city to follow him down to the Wesa River, where they all drowned. He was a good rat catcher despite being this really strange weirdo, and the rats already loved his music. The rats loved his music. God knows why. Anyway, I thought rats could swim though they just drowned, but I think they were hypnotized by his beautiful song. Oh got it, okay, So it hypnotized all the rats into going into the river and drowning. You know, he was just so hypnotized with the jingling. He's got that jingle going and then he's dingling and he's the swaying motion of his body. So the mayor's pissed that he has to pay this weirdo. He's not grateful for the rats. Oh no, he's happy the rats are gone, but he's, oh god, this guy's weird. And he really doesn't want to pay him. He's like, I'm not gonna pay you one thousand. I'll give you fifty guilders instead, which was an outrage because being offered one thousand dollars and then fifty dollars is pretty outrageous. Wow, what a jerk, Yeah, super jerk, and the piper refuses. Of course, the mayor then tries to blame the pied piper for the rats and said that he brought the rats to town in order to extort the money, which is rude, but it's people would accept that I guess, oh, one hundred percent, And I wrote rats trained actors, trained to follow flute, then pretend to drown, and then move on to next town. Mayor grasping at Straw's so I guess he's yeah, he's basically saying the rats are paid actors. I just imagined that this guy was such a weirdo that, like, it's not hard to believe that maybe he trained an army of rats. He lives with an army of rats that like just follow him around, So he's that weird. I mean, he's playing the nose flute and then wearing a little jinko that he would train an army of rats. Did you hear yourself right now? I'm just saying that he couldn't be that weird. I'm just saying it from I'm just playing Devil's Advocate with the mayor, because the mayor is the dick in this, so, yeah, the mayor is the jerk. But also it's obviously this guy was weird enough that it wasn't totally unheard of that he could have been living with a bunch of trained rats and wandering the countryside. Could he buy with that fifty I don't know. I don't know what that translate says, but I'm assuming a thousand guilder was a lot of money, and fifty guilder would be let's see, wow. Okay, so a thousand would have been five hundred and fifty four dollars, and then he gave him what is fifty, like twenty of that? It would probably be yeah, oh man, Okay, yeah that's bad. Okay, rude jez okay. I feel bad for him now, okay, yeah he's mad. I would be super angry. And when a weirdo gets angry, yeah, you don't want to piss off a weirdo. You just don't want to piss a weirdo off. Enraged by this broken promise and slander, the Piper stormed out of the town, vowing to return later and take revenge. And then I wrote, you've angered a magic weirdo. He's going to bring the rats back, Like, yeah, what's he gonna do? What is he gonna do? Oh? God, who knows? You never Like that's the problem. You never know what a weirdo is gonna They're unpredictable. They're unpredictable. When I read a self defense book a long time ago or whatever one of the things was, like nobody wants to fight the weirdo or the fight the oh I forgot what the word was. But if you just look like you are not there, the people will want to fight you. If you willing to, for example, rip off your shirt, just throw furniture around. Like nobody wants the weirdo. Nobody wants the weirdo. Nobody wants the guy who's robed feces on himself. You know what I mean. Nobody wants that guy. Nobody's gonna challenge you in prison if you're that guy, you know what I mean. Yeah. Also, you know, maybe the weirdos has a thousand yard stare and he just comes and he just stares at the mayor, and the Mayor's like, okay, sure you can get rid of our rats. Get out of here. Well we'll get you away from me right now. A thousand guilders, you got it, go for it. Try I dare you try to get rid of our rats. I don't believe you. You're not going to be able to get rid of them with your flute. Your flute that's actually your nose. And the weirdo of course accepted, Oh no, I know I know, I feel bad for him now, so now I'm rooting for him. The weirdo. So on Saint John and Paul's Day, which I have no idea what day that actually is, while the adults are in church, the piper returned, dressed in green like a hunter and playing the sweet sounds of his pipe. In doing so, he attracted the town's children, hypnotizing them and promising to take them to a magical land. One hundred and thirty children followed him out of the town into a cave. They were never seen again. Wow. Yeah, you don't fuck with a weirdo. Wow. Depending on what version you hear, three children remained behind. One had a limp and couldn't follow quickly enough, the second was deaf therefore couldn't hear the music, and the last was blind and unable to see where the kids were going. But I like to think of these kids as the heroes of the tale, because the blind kid can hear the flute is just his nose or off key, but he's like and the kid's like, why why is everybody going somewhere? And then the kid with a limp is like, why is everyone in such a hurry? I don't understand why this guy's trying to hurry everyone out of the village. I'm just imagining you're a deaf kid and everybody's leaving and you're just like, h wait, guys, don't go with that weird guy. Yeah, and then you're the deaf kid. Why is everyone following this fucking weirdo? What's going on? A guy playing his nose as a flute and you guys are all just wandering after him. What is going on? You can just see the limb kid trying to explain everything to them. No, it's cool, we should all go. We should all go, and then be like, no, we're not going, Timmy, We're not going. No, stay here, don't go. I've a bet also for the for the blind kid, he's just hearing this hypnotizing music, but he I imagine it was like all like It's like you had to see the guy gyrate, you had to like, uh, like a host show. Yeah, to be hypnotized. If you think you're gonna go to a magical land, you have to be in the experience, the pied experience. Yeah. So anyway, his weird magic spngaliism didn't really work on them. And also no guy playing a flute with his nose is taking kids to a magical fun land. Sorry, they're not going to a magical fun land like all those kids thought they were. They're not going. Yeah, guys, it's in the cave, trust me. So anyway, these three kids informed the villagers of what happened when they came out of the church. And other versions of the tale. It can go. It ranges from like very dark to medium dark, like a coffee bland. Other versions say the pied Piper led the children to the top of Coppelberg Hill, where he took them to a beautiful land, probably a lie. Or he made them walk into the river and they all drowned, which is I think the classic version of this story is that in order to punish the mayor, he makes all the children hypnotize like he did the rats, and they all go into the river and they all drown. Yeah, and I think there's a really big issue here, Michelle. Why was he dressed as a hunter this time? I know, right, makes you wonder if he was ever like if the whole gesture facade was like a thing. It's a weird story. It's a very weird story. He's on the prowl, he's dressed like a hunter. He's going to bring the kids away. Yeah, I have heard that part about him just leading the children out into the river and the children's drown which it's it's terrible. It feels like it balances the story a little bit better where it's like as opposed to they just go into a mountain cave and disappear. Yeah, because there's a lot of questions with that. I'm like, it's a cave, guys, it's not a tunnel. It's a cave. Yeah, it's just they went in and it just shut. Maybe they went to the middle of the earth. Well, they went to a magical land, so maybe that was maybe they went to a what is it hollow earth? And then there's another version of where the piper extorted payment and got like several times the original payment in gold in order to return the children. Fine, that could be whatever happened with that version of the story too. I like that one too, are that one's yeah? Okay, so we can combine the stories here. So the pete Piper takes the kids to a cave and locks them in there and then says, yo, give me two thousand guilders and then yeah, that would have worked, that would have been a good story. But then Weirdo would have been like killed shot. I don't know. I feel like people didn't any value stuff back then, like live. Oh, I agree, but I like the point is is that no one would have known where the kids are, so that would have been his trading thing. But yeah, I'm sure he would have been killed. I'm sure he would have been burnt at the stake, like immediately if he wasn't magical. He's a magical weirdo. Remember, never really liked that story, man. I remember when I heard about it. It was the kids go into the river, they drowned, and I remember thinking, wow, like why didn't he just pay them? Oh? It just clicked, Okay, so that's why yeah, Oh okay, okay, wow late okay, timing to pay the piper. You gotta pay the piper. That's the moral of the story. But Hamlin's a real place. Hamlin has a street called there's a German name which I'm not even I'm gonna try to say, but it's called the Street without Drums and is believed to be the last place that the children were seen. Do you want to hear what really happened? Da da da da. Nobody knows. I knew it. There are some theories though, of what really happened. That's the story, right, I told you guys all the story, the myth what is like well known. The brothers Grimm did a version of it that poem I was talking about earlier by Robert Browning, which is very long. They all talk about the piper being like this. It becomes a moral story about keeping your promises right, that's the punishment. So I was curious about where this actually came from because there's some different stories because nobody knows what actually happened to the kids, but it seems like something did happen to the kids of Hamlin in twelve eighty four. I mean the piper aspect and the rats aspect allga added later. That's documented of being added later. So I was like, okay, let's look at some theories about what could have caused the story. The plague obviously ere in the twelve hundreds or whatever. That's Black Death time. Who suggested that there was a rats infestation and then maybe the kids all died of the plague or something like that. The other theory is migration. During that time, there was a lot of migration. And there is a town in Poland that has a lot of the same last names as people in Hamlin, which is weird that they have German last names in the Polish town. That's like a theory that a bunch of kids left to go migrate and start a life somewhere else. Wait, so they actually moved. Yeah, they moved. That's a speculation because like I guess, there was a lot of immigration to different areas at that time. There was I don't know, there was like a fault. I'm not quite sure if it was like the fall of the Ottoman Empire or something, but lot's of land opened up, so like people would move. Okay, well, there's technology now that they're using, like DNA technology to trace that kind of stuff. I noticed that for like the Roanoke mystery, where that town people just vanished, like they're searching through DNA stuff. So that would be an interesting I wonder if anybody's looking this up right now, like as in I would hope so investigate because I guess. Hamlin has a festival every summer about this too, about about the Pied Piper. They do a festival. It's a thing. It's a tourist thing. Yeah, it's a tourist thing. I want to go. I know, it's a tourist thing. Another theory that speculated is that a bunch of children joined the Children's Crusade, which I had no idea what that was, and I did a I like, let me, I just went down the rabbit hole on Wikipedia about the Children's Crusade, which was fascinating. Uh it's real. Yeah, that's led by some kid who was twelve who was like, oh, oh, God wants us to retake the Holy Land, and so he recruited all these weird children to walk across Europe and he was like the Seaesel part when we get to the Mediterranean. And of course that didn't happen, and so a lot of the kids a either went home, two out of every three died. A lot of them were sold into slavery once they got to the Mediterranean. Like, none of this was good. Nobody made it to the Holy Land. I had never heard of this. This is so interesting, I know, I yeah, it was real. It was bizarre. I just because a kid had a dream that God was talking to him, and so the Children's Crusade fascinating. Wow, I know, Okay, I gotta look that up. Yeah, the Children's Crusade is worth looking up. It's very weird. And I was like, are there any like movies about it? And I'm just like, there's not enough. I want more movies about the Children's Crusade. And then another thing is that the church used the term children for poor people, so this might have not even been children. Oh okay that disappeared. Yeah, you know what I mean, like at that time, because they used children to describe the helpless as opposed to the poor, So that's just the term. So it might not have even been children that disappeared, So they may have been just poor people. Yeah, it might have been. Like the emigration thing makes sense because if you're saying the children disappeared and it's just the poor people of the town, adults leaving to immigrate, makes sense, okay. And I wonder where they got the pipe piper part. So here are the only facts that are concrete about this whole thing, right, like where the pie piper thing came from. So the earliest mention of the story is that there was a stained glass window on the church in Hamlin in thirteen hundred. The window has been described in several accounts between the fourteenth and seventeenth century, and it was destroyed in sixteen sixty, and they've remade it because of descriptions, but that one has gone on the surviving descriptions, it features a colorful figure of a pied piper and several figures of children dressed in white, so that's one of the only pieces of evidence that they have. And then the window was generally considered to have been created in memory of a tragic historical event of the town. Hamlin records also apparently start with this event, and the earliest written record of the town chronicles is from an entry from thirteen eighty four, which reports it is one hundred years since our children left ah, and that's those are the only facts about the whole story. Isn't that weird? Wow? Super weird? I know, so clearly something happened to these kids, but who knows what or if they were kids, But it's lost to time. It's lost to time. Wow. Okay, that guy. It went from this already interesting story to now this like mystery, like what happened? Wow? Nobody knows? Nobody knows. Clearly some trauma happened in that town, right, and then the story like sprung up around it kind of makes sense of it, but who knows what that was. Could have been a landslide, which like also would have added to the fact that he takes them into a cave or whatever. The pied piper leads them into a cave or I don't know. It's interesting because depending on how you tell the story, who's the bad guy, the mayor who doesn't follow through his promises, or is it the pied piper who just has become a metaphor in our current times? I guess, so we have a record of what the slang means. A pied piper is like a charismatic person who is like full of false promises and who will lead you into a river and possibly drown you. Or people who seem fun and have their own agenda. I think, Okay, if there was a plague around that time, right, so, and the rats were there, that makes sense, Like the rats. You know how people blame like the leaders of their cities or whatever. They might have made a a I don't know, some type of story up and then they want you to believe it with fake news, I think people make the story up to find meaning and like meaninglessness too. Something probably did happen to those kids, but now there's like a moral tale about it, and there's a reason when there probably wasn't a reason or at least like a reason that they could identify at that time. Yeah, imagine, just like the kids knewed to be isolated because they were sick, and then they had to have a reason why they didn't come back. Ah, that's sad. But yeah, the pipeer's still a weirdo. Well, he's not charging anything up front like nowadays people ask for thirty percent, forty, Yeah, fifty percent up front. Now it's hey, you know what, I'm going to do the work and then I'll charge you later, which I think was a dumb move. Is not recommending. Sure, he should have gone to business exactly, or at least listen to one of those Ty Lopez guys. I'm pretty sure this is this is basics, Touff charge fifty. I mean the rats were probably advising him, and get the money up front. Get the money up front so we can move on to the next town. Get the money upfront, and we'll meet you down river. He didn't listen. He was just like, no, you know what, I'm gonna trust them. I'm gonna trust them. Jingle jingle. He I'm gonna trust them. I'm gonna trust them. Big mistake. I'll just steal their children later. So he was a vengeful guy. I mean, morall of this actual story is don't mess with the weirdo. Yeah. Really cool, really cool. Thanks for thanks for that information, Michelle. I like that. Look, I'm full of lots of random information. I'm very good at bar trivia too. Just a fun fact. What are we gonna talk about next week? Can win? I don't know. I guess it'll be a surprise. Oh wait, let me wait. Let me play us out, Let me play us out.