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Date: July 19, 2024 12:10PM
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https://www.amusingplanet.com/2018/12/the-true-story-behind-pied-piper-of.htmlThe most common theory behind the tale is that the children died of natural causes such as epidemic, and the Piper was just an allegory of death. Others believe that that they may have joined the failed Children's Crusade of 1212 where thousands of children set off for the Holy Land, but many died on the way or were sold to slavery. But the theory does not explain why the story is set so firmly in Hamelin. Besides the Children's Crusade occurred some seventy years before the alleged incident in Hamelin.
A new theory suggest that the phrase “children of Hamelin” was not meant to convey literal youths, but rather “inhabitants of the town,” and that following the Pied Piper was actually a metaphor for emigrating. In the 13th century, many Germans were persuaded, by offering rewards, to settle in Moravia, East Prussia, Pomerania or in the Teutonic Land by landowners. Consequently, thousands of young adults from Lower Saxony and Westphalia headed east and settled there as evident from dozens of Westphalian place names that show up in this area.
Historian Jürgen Udolph believes that many residents from Hamelin wound up in what is now Poland. In the regions of Prignitz and Uckermark and in the former Pomeranian region, Udolph found families with the same dynastic names as in Hamelin with “amazing frequency”. Udolph surmises that the children were actually unemployed youths who had been sucked into the German drive to colonize its new settlements in Eastern Europe. Landlords often employed certain characters called “lokators” who roamed northern Germany trying to recruit settlers for this purpose. Like a medieval piper, some of them were brightly dressed and all were silver-tongued.