I’m a landlord with several properties in Germany. I recently let to an English ex-pat, who never caused a problem until his direct debits stopped two months ago.
After several weeks of failed attempts to contact him, I went to the flat to investigate. The flat was pristinely clean, with clear tables and surfaces; the only thing out of place was a notebook on the desk. I present the disturbing contents of that book here, without further comment.
“It is 100 years since our children left.”
This line is the earliest surviving record in the town chronicles of Hamelin, a town in Lower Saxony, Germany, in 1384. 130 children were taken from Hamelin by the Pied Piper in 1284. This myth has been fictionalised many times, notably by the Brothers Grimm in the 19th century; but unlike most myths, this one is based in verifiable fact. Nobody knows what happened to the children, although there has been plenty of speculation; but those children most definitely disappeared, never to return.
So when you discover that your Masters degree in European Folklore Studies is exactly zero use in getting an actual job, and the insurance company you’ve been working at for fifteen years succumbs to the pandemic and makes most of the accounting team, including yourself, redundant - what else are you going to do? Obviously you have no choice but to pack your bags, sell your flat, move to Saxony, and solve the mystery of the disappearance of the children of Hamelin.
In late 2020 I managed to rent a flat near the centre of Hamelin. Most Germans speak reasonable English, which is fortunate as I do not speak reasonable German. These days I can get by, but back then most of my conversation included a lot of hand gestures and rifling through an English-German dictionary. I settled down and started to explore the town.
The Pied Piper story is all over the place in town. Museums, statues and plaques abound, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a souvenir shop without a tacky over-priced doll or statue of the colourfully-dressed Piper himself. It can be hard to distinguish fact from legend from fiction. But this is what I studied for four years. If anybody could figure it out, I could.
For two months I scoured town records, including that famous quote above. Library officials were happy to help me translate old German, and my reading comprehension gradually improved.
The story as you might know it, where the Piper was a rat-catcher with colourful clothes and a magic pipe, spurned payment for his services, was created centuries later. There are no surviving eyewitness accounts to the events. The closest to a contemporary account is the Lüneburg Manuscript from about 1450, containing the first mention of a silver pipe. The manuscript references a “chorus book” written by Johannes de Lüde. Johannes was born after the disappearance of the children, but his mother saw the events first-hand and related them to her son.
So we have an ancient event, referenced only briefly in the town’s official accounts a century later, then fleshed out another hundred years after, citing a second-hand account written in a book which has been lost. It would be generous to call this vague.
I’d made friends with one of the local librarians, and one evening, over a litre of pilsner, I asked about the chorus book.
I wasn’t the first to ask him. He doubted the book ever existed, and even if it did, he didn’t think it would have survived down through the centuries; but as I was now well-known to the library, and he’d seen the care and dedication I gave to my work, he agreed to let me browse the closed stacks.
It took a week to go through the stacks. The librarian even let me peruse the library’s private collection, under his supervision. I found nothing. In the end he gave me a referral to the other libraries in town, and after several more weeks - I still had nothing.
I’d exhausted the libaries. I’d exhausted the town hall. What else was there? I started a search of the oldest buildings in Hamelin, at least, those open to the public. Basically, that meant churches - perhaps the best place to find a chorus book.
There are many ancient churches in Hamelin, and some were friendlier to a folklore researcher than others. I could discount most books, including all that were printed, of course. My search suitably narrowed, I scanned through every suspect, looking for anything that seemed out of place. And in the fourth church, I found it.
Hidden at the bottom of a cardboard box that looked like it hadn’t been opened for decades was a small, square volume, bound in leather. Nothing was written on the cover, and there was no introduction; just two hundred hymns and prayers, carefully written out on the brittle yellow pages. But at the back of the book were twenty blank pages; and on the first two of these, in a different scrawny hand, was … something. I could make out few words, but several times I saw “kint” - old German for “children”.
I felt a thrill of excitement. Was this what I was looking for? Probably not, but my heart raced at the hint of a possibility. I photographed the two pages, helped the priest pack up the books, and went to the pub.
The next day I emailed a university lecturer the librarian had introduced me to. She emailed me back a few days later with her translation. What follows is my conversion of the account into modern English.
Eight months ago, on the Twentieth Day of August in the Year of our Lord 1284, the Piper came to Hamelin. I was at the well collecting water when I saw him enter from the West, dressed all in green. He crossed the fields with ease, and strode over the River with not a toe dipping into the Water.
He carried no Bag, and held nothing in his Hands. Without a word he walked to the central Square and sat cross-legged. From the folds of his green coat he pulled a Pipe of pure Silver and began to play. I dare not describe the Melody even could I remember the Notes, save to say that it was both Haunting and Beautiful. The Song brought Peace and Tranquility to the minds of all who heard it, and a large Crowd gathered to hear this strange man.
Played he from Noon to Dusk, and all the Town were transfixed. Thought we this was an Angel, sent from Heaven to tell us all the Peace that awaits us in our Lord’s Kingdom. As the Sun set the Piper slowed his Tune and soon stopped. He sat still there in the Square, not speaking a single Word, and we slowly returned to our Houses, our hearts aching for more of this Strange Music.
We dreamed that night, every one of us, of a far-off Land of Plenty and Peace, where Beautiful Melodies gave us Calm and nothing could ever harm us. But when we woke the next day we discovered a terrible Calamity had befallen Hamelin.
My Leopolda, in her sixth Year, was not abed. As I searched I heard the Wail of hundreds of Mothers. All our Children were gone. We searched all the Town for a sign, and soon came across a Trail of Footprints leading out to the East.
We followed, every one of us, these Footsteps. As we neared the Hill one of the Men spied a lone Figure, and then another, walking our way. Two Boys, Carl the blind and Ernest the lame, leading each other back to Hamelin.
The Boys had heard the song in the Night, as had we all. But while we slept, the Children awoke. When all had gathered in the Square to hear the Piper play, the Piper stood and walked East. They followed, unable to stop their Feet from moving forward. But Ernest was slow, and lagged behind, and Carl stumbled, unable to see the way. Ernest watched from a distance as the Piper led the rest into a Cave in the West Wall of the Koppen seven Miles East of Hamelin. Before the Boys could reach the Cave, the last Child disappeared beyond the Wall. The Rock covered the Cave again, and the Music stopped. Ernest and Carl found each other and slowly walked back to Hamelin, weeping for the loss of the Music and the Paradise they believed lay beyond the Wall.
Thus it was that one hundred thirty Children left our Fair Town, never to be seen again, my fair Leopolda among them. Our Grief cannot be stilled, and not a Night passes without the Wails of Mothers and Fathers piercing the air.
Alfonso the Blacksmith has been chosen to carve the Names of all our lost Children in a Rock at the base of the Wall. In Memory Eternal, the Children of Hamelin.
I’d done it! I’d solved one of the most enduring mysteries of old Europe!
… Or had I? What did I really have? A photograph of some old writing, and an emailed translation. Even the colour was off - the legends refer to “pied”, many-coloured, not just green. Perhaps “pied” was a later embellishment. Perhaps the ink from the book could be carbon-dated, but even then … I needed more.
I bought some equipment and a small one-man tent, went to sleep, and woke up early the next morning, heading east out of Hamlin to explore the hills with camping supplies for several days.
18 March 2021
I reached the target area around seven in the morning. I’m not sure if camping is permitted there, so I pitched my tent out of sight between a few rocks, which also gave me some shelter from the wind. Thick freezing fog hampered my visibility and made staying outside quite uncomfortable, so I changed my damp clothes and waited for the weather to clear.
For the next several hours I had little to do. The hill was eerily quiet, and I passed the time reading my notes. This quite unnerved me, in the silence and solitude, and I found myself imagining whispers and shadows passing outside my tent. Whenever I peeked out, of course, there was nothing there. I tried to calm myself by playing my instrumental playlist on my headphones. I pressed “shuffle”, and immediately regretted it; the first tune that played was pipe music. I changed to soft rock and read “The Hobbit”, imagining myself to be in Bilbo’s shoes (or lack thereof), treking through a strange landscape.
By around noon I looked outside, and the fog had cleared. I put my hiking boots on and started to explore the hill.
The hill in question is quite beautiful. It’s heavily wooded, and in those early spring days, light browns mingled with vivid greens. Tall trees and moss-covered rocks sprout from the ground almost everywhere, and you often see a fair few hikers in the area, though I saw nobody that day. I decided that for the first day, I’d just walk around, getting the lay of the land. Aside from a few birds, a squirrel, and a deer in the distance, I neither heard nor saw any other creatures before I went back to camp at 5:30, as it started to rain.
I wrote a few notes on what I’d seen in my journal, and marked a few places on my map that might be a promising place to start my search in earnest. I cooked some sausages, had a couple of beers, and settled in for the night.
Sleep came easily to me that first night. It had been a tiring day, and as soon as I put my head down, I dozed off.
I was awakened by a distant sound. I couldn’t make it out at first, but as I listened it became clearer. To describe it as beautiful couldn’t do it justice. It sounded as though an angel had descended to Earth to herald paradise. I opened the tent and looked out.
The full moon lit up the landscape, and shone its light on a small figure, dancing down the slope. He was dressed head to toe in green, and the music I heard came from him. He was playing a single pipe, gleaming silver in the moonlight. He danced to and fro, up and down the hill. I was transfixed, as though hypnotised, by this strange dancing piper; I listened to his music for minutes, or perhaps it was hours.
Then the piper danced, randomly it seemed to me, up the hill towards my tent. When he got about twenty metres from me, he stopped playing and looked up. I met his eyes, and a moment of terror gripped me.
Then I woke up.
A sketch of the Piper from the notebook
19 March 2021
I’d planned to start early today, but it took me over an hour to shake the nightmare. I was completely unrested from my sleep. I looked for footsteps around my camp, finding none but my own, and even checked the Moon phase. It was a crescent moon. The previous night’s events had indeed been nothing but a dream, and after my third cup of coffee I felt ready to start my search.
From the translation of the ancient hymnbook, I figured I was looking for a rock wall face, more or less vertical, facing west, and large enough to hold a doorway. That wasn’t much to go on, and I’d marked several possible locations the previous day. I marked my map with each of these, giving them numbers, and began working through them methodically.
I couldn’t really say what I was looking for. I discounted a few locations easily, realising that they faced the wrong way, or that on closer inspection they simply weren’t wide enough. I checked twelve locations that day, and crossed nine off my list. The last three remained possibilities, though I could find no evidence of a cave yet. There were thirty marks on my map, so I decided to work the rest over the next few days, and then come back to the most likely areas.
My lack of quality sleep caught up with me quickly that evening, and besides, sunset was still early. My camping stove was good enough for some quite nice beans, egg and toast, all things considered, and I settled in to sleep around 8.
In the middle of the night I sat bolt upright. Had I heard something? I strained my ears, listening in the darkness. There was a faint sound, as of somebody singing a tune, but without words.
I put on my shoes and coat, quietly unzipped the tent, and stepped outside. The full moon lit the green and brown landscape, and I could just about see a strange figure in the distance, dancing. He was the source of the tune, and I now realised he was playing a pipe. It was the most wonderful music I had heard in my life, and I knew I had to hear it better. I softly made my way down the slope, to get closer to this curious man, and saw that he was dressed entirely in green: green trousers, green tunic, green hat, even green cloth shoes.
I followed from a distance as he danced. Hiding behind rocks, so as not to disturb him in case he stopped his playing, I watched and followed him all around the hill. Such an amazing man! Obviously this was a messenger from Heaven, and if I just followed, I knew he would lead me there.
He danced, and I followed, for many hours, though the Moon stayed high in the sky, shining brilliant silver from his pipe. After a long time the man changed his tune; no less wonderful, it quickened its pace, as did he. He danced faster, but tirelessly, frolicking across the hill and between the trees, until he reached a tall cliff. A hole opened in the rock face, just tall enough for a man, and the piper danced through it. The music got quieter, and I had to keep up. I picked up my pace, running, then sprinting, towards the cave. I was almost close enough to touch it, when the entrance closed shut. I slammed bodily into the cliff.
I woke up.
20 March 2021
I was drenched head to foot in cold sweat, though it felt like dew. I had a limited amount of water with me, but used what I could spare to clean myself up, and dressed in fresh clothes.
If I’d been tired before, I was exhausted today. Still I had a task ahead of me, and I’d best get to it.
As I was preparing for the day ahead, an image from that night’s dream flashed in front of my eyes. The rock face; I recognised it! It was one of the three I’d marked as possibilities the day before. It was just a dream, I know, but I had to start somewhere. It may as well be there. I sketched the rock as it had appeared in my dream, and headed out.
To call it a cliff was stretching the imagination. It was maybe a metre and a half high, barely tall enough for a child, and if there had been an opening, an adult would certainly have had to stoop to enter. I stood back and looked at the rock, comparing it with my drawing.
The top of the rock was more or less the same, but the bottom was completely different. For one thing, the rock was much smaller in real life. For another, there had been a path leading to it in my dream, but there was no such path here. I was about to give up and move on, when something occurred to me.
Rocks don’t generally change that much in seven hundred years; but earth can.
The base of the rock was covered in ground. Had centuries of growth hidden the rest? I’d brought a small trowel with me, and I started to dig.
It was hard and slow work, but after four hours the scene was starting to look more like my sketch. And then my trowel hit something solid. There was a large stone, something I hadn’t seen in my dream. With a little annoyance I pulled ground from the stone, planning to dig it out and haul it away, until I saw something that changed everything. There were words carved into it, weathered, but still mostly legible.
IN M_MOR_A AET_RNA
In Memoria Aeterna. “In Memory Eternal.”
I kept digging. The stone was large and smooth, with rounded edges and a flat face. In that face were carved names. I counted - there were 130.
This was it! I’d found the cave. Not only that - I had the list, all the names of those children. The myth had become history, and I was the one who had done it. I had visions of the stone taking pride of place in a Hamelin museum, with my name above it. But there was one last task to complete.
By the evening I had cleared the last of the ground covering the area, and the rock matched my sketch, even down to the hard-packed path leading up to it. But there was no sign of a cave entrance. The rock was smoothly weathered, and brought to mind the West Door of Moria. I pushed and prodded the rock for nearly an hour, long past sunset, before deciding to continue in the light of morning. It was a dark night, and I stumbled a few times on the way back to the tent, before heating up a canned stew and settling down.
A sketch of the rock face from the notebook
I woke to silence, the light of the full moon filling my tent. I pulled on my green tights, green jacket, and green shoes, and donned my green hat. I stepped outside and brought my silver pipe from the folds of my jacket, and started to play.
All night I danced under the moon, across the hill and through the fields. All night I played my pipe, and the music filled the air. Animals calmed as I neared them, and followed, enchanted by my pipe. Many hours passed until the night came close to ending, and I danced to the west, down the hill, towards the door. My tune sped up, the rock opened for me, and I danced inside to darkness.
I woke up.
21 March 2021
This was too much. I was drained, as though I hadn’t slept a minute for three days. The rock would still be there tomorrow, next week, next month, and I needed rest. I packed my tent; tonight I would sleep in my own bed.
But first I headed to the rock. It was just as it had been yesterday, and I took photos from all angles, showing the cliff face, the memorial stone, and the surroundings. By midday I had enough footage and headed back into town.
22 March 2021
I slept well that night, undisturbed by strange dreams, and when I woke the next day I was ready to review what I had learned so far.
Three extremely vivid dreams all took place in the full moon. The translated primary source for the disappearance said this occurred on 20 August 1284, and I checked the moon’s phase for that date. It was a half-moon, and I was disappointed to find my suspicions disproved - until I remembered that back then, they used the Julian calendar. Accounting for the change in calendar, that date had indeed been a full moon.
The next full moon was on 28 March, six days away. Over the next few days I wrote all I had learned in detail, being careful to cite all my sources. I searched online for any pictures of the rock I’d found, but it seemed nobody else had taken an interest in it. If you didn’t know the history, it’s a rather boring rock. I gathered some more equipment, kept an eye on the weather forecast, and waited.
28 March 2021
I awoke on that fateful day with the distant sound of a pipe receding into my fading dreams. I left early, and by sunrise at 7 am I had pitched my tent just to the side of the path, and facing the rock.
I had a newly-bought video camera with about 40 hours of capacity, and set it upon its tripod, sheltered inside the tent, and started recording.
This time, my tent was clearly visible to anybody coming up the hill. There was nothing I could do about it, so I waited outside, watching out for people. To pass the time I studied the rock again, finding nothing new, and took rubbings of the names on the memorial stone. I only saw two hikers, who passed by without comment, before it started to rain around 3 pm and I took shelter inside.
I didn’t really think anything would happen during the day, and as I expected, night fell without incident. The rain had cleared up and the sky was mostly clear, with scattered clouds occasionally dulling the rising full moon. I imagined I could hear the sound of a pipe, floating through the trees. I kept watch on the rock all night, taking my eyes off it only long enough to make fresh coffee now and then.
And so I kept my vigil all night long. I saw nothing. Not even a passing rabbit, or the sound of a deer scraping its antlers.
29 March 2021
When the sun rose in the morning, I shut down the camera, pulled down the tent, and, with a profound sense of disappointment, took one last look at the rock before turning back to town.
And that’s when I saw it. Something was different about the memorial stone. I walked towards it and saw, laying neatly across the top of the stone - a long, shining, perfectly-polished, silver pipe.
The cave never opened, I was sure of that, and nobody had approached the rock. Later I watched the entire video footage several times, and saw nothing. Where the pipe had lain was just out of view of the video, but I knew it had not been there the previous day. Bewildered I gathered my belongings, put the pipe in my coat pocket, and headed home.
4 April 2021
It was several days before I dared play the pipe. The sound that came from it was just as wonderful as it was in my dreams, even though I’ve never played anything since the recorder when I was 8. My lips fit just right over the mouth piece, and my fingers flew across the holes like I’d been playing for years. I didn’t know the tunes I played, but I never missed a single note.
The pipe itself was exquisitely made. There was no manufacturer’s mark, and not a single scratch or blemish. I think it was made of pure solid silver, and there was no clue as to how old it was; it could have been made last week, or a thousand years ago.
I played, that first time, for several hours. When evening came I realised I was hungry and had no food in the flat, so I stepped outside.
There were about twenty people, adults and children, calmly standing outside my front door. Accompanying them were several animals; I spotted two cats, a rabbit, and even a couple of rats. They had obviously been listening to the music, and now that I had stopped, they seemed to break out of their enchantment, and one by one they walked away without a word.
9 April 2021
Over the next week I considered what I had seen, what I knew, and what I conjectured.
The cave hadn’t opened, but it had responded to my presence. I’d been there many times, but something only happened during the full moon. I had been right about the timing.
I had never played the pipe at the wall. Was the pipe the key to opening the cave? My dreams suggested it was. The next full moon was on 27 April; I would go to the cave then.
27 April 2021
So I waited. In the cool clear evening of 27 April I walked out to the wall, pipe in my pocket, and waited for the moon to rise. At midnight the moonlight lit up the rock face. I brought out my pipe, and played.
So entranced was I by the tune that I couldn’t help dancing. I danced across the hill, as I had in that dream so long ago, for an hour, two hours, three. And then I found myself returning to the wall. Now it was open, a dark hole, three metres high and two metres wide. I danced through the door.
Moonlight filtered through the door just enough for me to make out the cave beyond. It was large, perhaps extending all the way through the hill. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness I could see several white shapes on the ground. I put the pipe away and walked towards one.
It was bones. A human skeleton, about four feet tall, lying on the floor of the cave. I approached another; this one was similar, but smaller, with fragments of rotted fabric that must once have been clothes. There were too many skeletons to count precisely, but I made an estimate - it was more than 130. A lot more.
Adrenaline pumped through my body, and my senses were heightened. I fancied I heard breathing, a slow breathing that wasn’t my own, coming from deeper in the cave. Was somebody alive down here? As I walked towards the sound, suddenly two red lights shone from the dark. A low growling came from below the eyes, and I heard something heavy shifting its weight.
I turned and ran, stumbling twice but not quite falling. I leapt over the memorial stone at the entrance and turned to see what was behind me.
It was big. Running on all fours, about the size of a large bear, covered in thick shaggy hair. As it neared the entrance I saw the moonlight shine off two large horns, and slobber glistened from its mouth. On instinct I took out the pipe and played a different tune. The wall grew bigger, closing the doorway, and the creature halted, unable to make it through the narrowing gap, before it closed completely.
I stayed there for a long time, listening to the creature howling and clawing at the inside of the now-closed door. It didn’t stop until sunrise.
I’ve thought a lot about the incident in the days since then. The creature isn’t natural, that much is obvious. It’s contained in the hill for now but without food, it will become more desperate, and I can only imagine the horror it could inflict if it were to escape.
It must be placated. It must be fed.
I’ve bought some new clothes, all in green. There’s a park near the eastern end of town where a few kids like to play late in the evening. And as I wait for the next full moon, thinking back to the number of skeletons in that cave, I find myself asking:
How many people, over the last seven hundred years, have taken on this task?