Found on an inscription discovered in Hamelin:

In the year of 1284, on John's and Paul's day
was the 26th of June
By a piper, dressed in all kinds of colors,
130 children born in Hamelin were seduced
and lost at the place of execution near the Koppen.

St. Vitus’ Dance

In the quiet German town of Hamelin, the folk watched as the darkness hit the crest of the hollow hills. The darkness was never welcomed, for it was said horrid things came from the surrounding forests—things like witches, wolves, and trolls—and fed upon the children. But it had to come, this darkness of dread and fear, so that the sun may rise on the morrow. After dimming the candles that fed off the air, the peasants of Hamelin quietly retired. They inspected every inch of their neat little home, ensuring a safe repose, and fearfully looked out of their barred windows. The streets were desolate and deeply engrossed in darkness. It was as this every night. So as they had done the night before and the night before that, shut their windows to the April nightly chill.

Hamelin was founded long ago in the time immediately subsequent to Charlemagne’s reign. Folk had settled there quickly, finding the solitude of the city quite a blessing. And indeed it was alone, Hamelin. It lay between a series of hills on all sides of the town. None could journey forth or journey thither without walking up and down these hills. The people of Hamelin hardly relied on trade because of the location of their beloved town, and they instead had to rely on one another. Journeying was, for the most part, completely out of the question unless for great reasons. Thus the people, only eighty or ninety adult inhabitants, married one another. ‘Twas not common, in fact, to have married your cousin, uncle, or nephew without knowing it. This was not the scourge of Hamelin, however.

Guda Vriunt placed her hand just behind the dancing flame and blew. A small collection of smoke rose to the left and upwards. She went to her window a last time, already have inspected the streets several times, and gazed out. The streets were as she remembered them; decaying of cobblestone, filled with the vomit and piss of others, alone they were. The homes across the street were dark and vacant. Guda let a chill pass through her body.

Then she saw a curious, dark figure.

The body, in shadow form only, crept past her window. It walked so near that Guda crouched beneath the window, afraid of looking at it. When she supposed the body was gone, she rose from the floor and her eyes fell on the decaying streets.

And there it was again, only farther away. It walked with a particularly solemn attitude, though had minor instances of sharp movements. As it walked, her eyes followed inquisitively, her heart swelling with terror. It jerked violently, falling to the ground, the dark figure twitching and twitching. Guda let out a gasp, perhaps not in pure fear but also alarm. Blinking away the image, her huge eyes did seek the figure again, but it was gone.

Guda’s head fell. ‘Twas nothing, you olde hag, she told herself. She sniffed, breathed deeply several times, and took a final gaze out the window. Standing on her very tip-toes, she desperately searched the scene, left to right, to and fro, for the body. It was nowhere to be found.

She almost laughed. Seeing things, that’s what I’m doing…

Before she completely turned to leave, she noticed the small flicker of light coming from the main room of her little dwelling. Guda walked shakily to it. It was the candle she had just blown out alive once again.

Her eyes inspected it. Truly alive. Only moments ago she witnessed the smoke rise to the ceiling!

Guda nervously blew the tiny flame out, watching again as the fire was no more. A deep sigh fell from her lips before her mind was set on going to bed once again. Father, Son, Holy Ghost, clear my mind of these awful thoughts. Let me sleep in dearest peace.

-

The Lord of Hamelin was generally considered in his prime; a handsome, graying, and completely dignified man he proved. Because his city was far too small and condensed for any great castle or courtyard, he built his manor atop a very insignificant hill to the west. Before the blood red sun fell behind the horizon, it would shadow Lord Hamelin’s house, and because of it, it would darken the entire city.

In a way, it was like a very subtle warning that the Devil-brought darkness was coming.

He walked to the town square, where heretics were burned and market stalls were set up. Induced into his daily outlook was joy and idealism. For his dearest councilor guaranteed the rat infestation problem would be taken care of on this morrow. Lord Hamelin held his head high, looked straight ahead, and met with a selection of noble guards and his councilor. They then waited for this savior of Hamelin.

“Lord, he approaches now,” excitedly said the councilor, waving to the man in the distance. The Lord of Hamelin’s eyes, swift and deathly cold, able to look into a man’s soul, followed the man. As he observed, he noticed the man walked with a certain level of confidence and charm that he himself could never muster. The man was wearing entirely black, a rich velvety black, and carried with him a charming array of pipes. He was completely ordinary, the man, with his plain face and plain expression. There was no special or particularly interesting feature upon neither his face nor his body. His eyes, darkly brown, were common and his nose and lips were precisely on the proper places according to the dimensions of a face. And his body was not particularly tall, lanky, broad, thin, or fat. It was merely average.

It was almost haunting.

The man bowed gracefully and looked upon Lord Hamelin. “Your name, sir?” He questioned in a deep, throaty voice.

“No name suits me well enough, your lordship,” said he. The man smiled widely, a smile almost too large for his narrow, clever face. “If you would, sire, you may simply call me the Piper.”

“Very well,” answered Lord Hamlin, smiling gently. “Piper, good man, when can my town be finished with these rats? They are known to bring fell diseases and I do care for my people.”

The piper played a darkly smile on his face. “Swiftly and soon, my lord. They will be dealt with by nightfall.”

“Praise Jesu,” murmured the lord.

“And my fee?” The piper questioned, his dark, smooth voice bringing unease to the air.

Lord Hamlin’s eyes instantly widened and he made an O with his mouth. “I nearly forgot! Your fee, yes, it shall be given to you when the rats are out, sir piper.” The lord grinned. “Sometimes I deem I am too forgetful for my own good.”

“Perhaps you are right,” muttered the piper, smiling.

-

The piper became relatively popular and legendary in Hamelin. Folk muttered his name as if he was their savoir, personal or not, from the horrendous rat population that had come to breed in their small German city. Not a single rat was seen in over two months even!

The totally ordinary man, the piper, with his enchanting music drove each and every rat from Hamlin and into the local river Weser where they drowned. It was history made.

-

Guda, on a hot June day, shook her head sadly at her daughter Elisabeta. For now she was asleep, dreaming kindly of good things Guda hoped. Her eldest son Ladislaus, stepped forward. His mother shakily looked over him.

“Mama, is Beta getting better?” He questioned, sad brown eyes peering into Guda’s so honestly and with concern that she could feel her eyes swell with new tears. Guda shook her head. “Mama, I was out today and Pieter, Fransiscus, the daughter of the baker, and all the daughters of the Tockerls have it too. What will happen to me? Will I have it, too?”

There were those matching pair of brown eyes that trembled. Guda could not bear to look into Ladislaus’s eyes any longer. “I pray not, my son.” And she wept, clenching onto Ladislaus in the form of an intense embrace. Ladislaus, a boy of five only, trembled within his mother’s grasp. Her bosom heaved against his small torso and his tunic was smothered with his mother’s tears. “I pray for you, Johannes, and Beta with each waking moment.”

Suddenly, there was a fierce commotion in the room nearby. Guda looked again into her son’s eyes and realized that the room beside Beta and her own was the room Ladislaus and Johannes slept in. Her heart raced.

“Johannes!” She tried to cry, though it only came out in a mere whisper.

Her son lay upon the floor shaking wildly, limbs stretching, trembling, quivering back and forth. There was a loud cry that erupted from his tiny mouth, a great scream that shook Guda to the bone. The child bashed his head into the dirt floor, wailing, screaming. His entire body moved without any help of any deliberate thought. There Johannes was upon the floor of his little room, throwing his own body into the wall and floor, right side of the head bleeding a crimson liquid.

“Johannes! Dear God!” Guda ran to her son. “Devils and demons be gone! You are not welcome!”

She wrapped the body of her son, still rapidly shaking, with her thick arms and held him until the shaking was over. His head, blood trickling down his cheek onto her tunic, nestled deeply in the crevice between his mother’s neck and shoulder. Heaving, Guda sat there cradling her youngest son.

Ladislaus watched in horror as his younger brother lay bleeding in his mother’s arms. He did not want this devil plague to come to him next.

“Mama! Mama!” Screamed Ladislaus, clenching to his mother with a fierce hunger and need for protection. Johannes blinked open an eye. Guda was somewhat relieved. “Johannes, wake up! Please!”

“Fetch me some linen, son,” requested Guda. Her eyes, soaked with tears, closed for only an instant and she was reminded of the dark body some months ago. A wave of coldness touched her body. Her hair stood on end. For a brief moment, her breath stopped and she was even further reminded of that awful creature that walked the nightly streets.

There she and her two sons remained until nightfall when she tucked them in and bid them say their prayers. Guda herself prayed more frequently now. There was something macabre afoot Hamelin.

-

“My peoples’ children are suffering from something, physician, and I demand to know what it is!” Lord Hamelin slammed his fisted hand upon the table in his hall. A slender Jewish man in his thirties with wise, calculating eyes, and a thick black beard shook as the impact of the blow registered. “Tell me what it is. For never in my forties years have I seen something as this.”

Those cunning eyes searched Lord Hamelin’s own and found naught by fear and madness. The physician answered, “My lord, this condition is certainly rare in such a quantity. In my travels I have witnessed its occurrence in several individuals of completely different cities, different countries even. But not as this. Not in this manner.”

“And what should I do about this…this condition?” Hamelin demanded, forcing his voice to be desperate and pleading-sounding. “What is it called, master physician?”

The Jewish physician sighed. “’Tis called St. Vitus’ Dance.” He paused. “We, in the medical world, neither have a precise name for it nor a reckoning of why it happens. My studies lead me to believe that it transpires in mostly children of a younger age. The symptoms are fairly noticeable: perhaps a high fever, spastic movements of the limbs, distorted facial features. There is no cure.”

“No cure?” The Lord of Hamelin gawked. His eyes fixated on the physician’s.

“No cure,” emphasized the man, “except common prayer to Saint Vitus.”

After a careful moment of consideration, Lord Hamelin turned to the physician. “Well then your services to Hamelin will not be needed after all. You may be on your way.”

The physician, in a lord’s company, bowed and disappeared into the baleful halls of Lord Hamelin’s manor. His footsteps were so subdued that they could not be heard. Then entered the sound of rain. It was not a mild rainstorm, but that of thunder, lighting, thick winds, and a downfall that would leave the town simply soaked. Lord Hamelin frowned.

I have failed my town! I have failed those I love!

As he, eyes filled with new tears, looked up to the heavens and then back down to a tapestry of infant Jesus, a strange shadow appeared on the wall. The flame flickered behind him until it was completely blocked by a figure. Hamelin turned fearfully, quivering in apprehension almost, to find it was the ordinary piper.

“I have not summoned you,” the lord said. He attempted to cast away the tears and speak with little stammer. “Why have you come here, Piper?”

“Greed summoned me here. Greed and an unfulfilled promise,” replied the piper with a cunning smile. He neared Lord Hamelin, eyes threateningly dipping into the man’s very soul, feeling his fear. “It has been near months since I drove those menacing rats from your city. You promised a reward, a purse if you will. And now here I stand without money at all. I play on the streets for a few coins, my lord. Have you no compassion?”

“I…I…I merely forgot. It is a simple thing! Here, here, I shall reward you here, right on the spot.” Lord Hamelin vigorously poured coins onto the table, fearful of his own life. The ordinary piper, though common in appearance, seemed otherworldly. Seemed something to be feared.

As if telling a child a bedtime story, the piper said, “I shall find my payment in other ways. Ways that will hurt you most deeply.”

“In which ways do you speak of?”

“Oh,” said the piper darkly, “you will see, my lord of Hamelin. In due time, you shall see.” With that, the piper bowed, proper as ever, and departed. Lord Hamelin would have been utterly mad to try and stop him.

-

Later in June sometime near sunset, a weepy collection of peasants and nobles alike gathered in a church for mass.

Guda followed the village baker and his wife Gerhild, who was her cousin, inside. They find a little niche somewhat near the front where the priest was. He, an apprehensive little man with a set of tiny, beady eyes, awkwardly stood with a Latin Bible in hand as the villagers crowded to hear his beautiful Latin words that they could not understand. Today he would be talking of Saint Vitus. And praying to him, of course.

As soon as the discomfited priest began his sermon, the adults of Hamelin folded their hands in prayer, unaware of the horror outside.

-

Johannes, Beta, and, the oldest, Ladislaus had been dancing with the other children of Hamelin when a particularly unnoticeable man approached them. The children, curious and huge eyes fixated on the man, drew near.

“Would you all like to hear a song then?”

The children nodded happily.

“Ah yes,” concluded the piper, “that way you may dance and dance little ones!”

And so he played.

But the dancing that ensued was unlike any form of merry dancing that happened at balls and great festivals at Hamelin or, for that matter, anyplace in the world. Johannes cried once, followed by the painful cries of the other children contracted with this scourge. The children jerked back and forth, their pretty doll faces twisting into the faces of demons.

And the piper dearly continued to play, only stopping in the midst to say, “Come children!” The music, ah yes, the music he played was so exceedingly seductive to the children’s’ ears. It was lively, full of passion and precision; it was music to dance to until the end of time.

One by one, the children, lured by the sound of the piper’s music, followed him through the filthy, wet streets of Hamelin. It was their joy to hear this music, so far from the lewdness of everyday life. And as they followed the piper completely out of town and into the hills, they shook with violent movements of their legs and arms. Children fell, trembling intensely, to the ground only to somehow pick themselves up once again. They were unable to resist the piper’s song.

“Dance and dance my little beauties!” The piper cried, stopping for only a moment from playing his beautiful melody. “Praise Saint Vitus!”

-

When the townsfolk discovered the barren streets of Hamelin, they had no other choice except to consult the lord. In an angry, confused, and utterly bewildered mob, they reached the lord’s manor. What had happened to their children was unfathomable.

Guda herself threw a stone at Lord Hamelin’s stained glass window, breaking it and causing it to smash into hundreds of pieces within a moment. “Lord! My lord Hamelin! Come out to us! We need your help desperately!” An image of her beloved children playing happily in the streets with the other children flashed in her mind. Their sweet faces, their possession of voices like angles, the happiness each felt in the company of the simplest of things…”Lord Hamelin! Come out!”

With their fists and small daggers, the townsfolk of Hamelin managed to raze the wooden door that concealed the intimate chambers of the lord. They ran forth through the corridors unknowing of where their lord may reside. Guda’s mind kept racing with the images of Johannes, Beta, and Ladislaus in their precious innocence. Playing in a field, in her arms, dancing around the Maypole on May Day…ah God, it was too much to withstand!

Guda knew she was a heavyset woman. And she also knew she did not possess weapons other than a kitchen knife. So she viciously slammed her body into a door of what she believed to be the lord’s solar.

Guda had guessed right.

And before her eyes was the Lord Hamelin, wearing indefinitely his finest clothes, looking down at her with dignity and those cold grey eyes, hanging from a noose he crafted from linens. Guda screamed.

Hearing her cry, other peasants and commoners soon entered Lord Hamelin’s chamber. A man stepped forth, a rather stout man though dressed in simple finery. “I am the Lord of Hamelin’s councilor. I brought this horrible curse upon the village that you call your homes. Your children, your beloved angels, they are gone now.”

His voice was entirely shuddering as if he had seen the Devil. Yet calm. He knew.

“And where are they?” Guda demanded.

“With Death, now.” Replied the councilor nonchalantly, in a voice so distant that it seemed to come from someone else.

The villagers rested their eyes upon him and each other in pure confusion. …How? When? As they stared and gasped among one another, they heard the body of the councilor fall the solar of the manor and onto the earth below. Several villagers, including Guda, ran back outside to the empty village. There was no sound that reached her ears. The air was fell with death.

The councilor lay dead, bones and internal organs damaged from the fall.

Guda watched him in a certain fascination for a moment, though she was not nearly as stunned to see the Death-ridden corpse of the councilor as she had been to see the lord’s. Then she noticed a creeping darkness that took over the town.

The sun had fallen behind the Lord of Hamlin’s manor, thus shadowing the entire town. It was the folks’ warning to run hither to their homes and tremble in fear, lest goblins and witches would feed off their…

…they had no children. The time of blissful laughter and heavenly faces was gone.

So the townsfolk of Hamelin stood in the town square as night fell across their damned village.

After all, what had they to fear now?

-

Historical Note: The Pied Piper was originally a fairy tale written by the Brothers Grimm. There was a lighter version, for children, where the Pied Piper came to relieve a town of its rats by playing his enchanting music. But the original version is said to have historical context. In 1284, a horrible disaster occurred in a German town called Hamelin. A piper, as revenge for not getting paid for his rat-catching services, led all 150 children to a cave and sealed them inside to die. However, there are other theories: the children fell into the Weser river by accident, the children left their parents to begin a new city, the children left on another Children’s crusade with the piper as their leader, or they were led out of the town to avoid the suffering of some type of disease. I used the last one. St. Vitus’ Dance is actually a form of chorea, a disease with symptoms of shaking and high fevers. Because of the seclusion of Hamelin in Koppen (hills), it could also be a hereditary form of Huntington’s disease. That may have been why the children were dancing as they followed the piper. Some historians put this in 1373 instead after the outbreak of the Black Death. The “dancing” would have also been called St. Vitus’ Dance but this type would have been mass hysteria type dancing…not medical. Others suggest the “Pied Piper” was the Devil. And others say it was Death, leading the doomed children away. Either way, the fairytale is open to interpretation. Thanks for reading :).