Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/235

 THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN.

IVE years ago, "as I walk'd through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place" called Hanover, and tarried there awhile. Encouraged by the assurance of Browning, that—

I formed an enthusiastic resolve to tread in the footsteps of the "Pied Piper", and to do what I could to investigate the history of that old North-German tradition, smiled on by the genius of our great poet, and added within the last halfcentury to the common stock of English nursery-delights. The undertaking was greater than I anticipated. I had not realised that to one with a scarce school-girl knowledge of the language of the country, research would prove even more difficult than it is wont to be; and I had trusted too blindly to Browning's exactness in the matter of topography. That "Hamelin Town's in" Hanover, and not in Brunswick, was of no real consequence; but that "by famous Hanover city", translated into prose, should signify over twenty-five miles off—fifty there and back, to be impressed on the memory by the "calm deliberation" of a State railway—was a fact of serious importance to one who had but little leisure for excursions. However, I did contrive to trot my hobby thrice to Hameln, and I set my seven senses loose on the track of the Piper. Of course they were at fault: the Pied One ran to earth six centuries ago, and may not since then have visited "the glimpses of the moon"; but, in spite of that, I derived some sort of satisfaction from my introduction to the place; and as I have since,