Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/241

 Rh himself out to be a rat-catcher, and promised to free the town from mice and rats for a stated sum, which the burghers agreed to pay. He drew out a little pipe, sounded it, and straightway all the rats and mice ran from the houses and gathered round him. He led them to the Weser, and, when he trussed up his garments and entered the water, they rushed in after him and were drowned. Then the burghers, being freed from the plague, repudiated their contract with Bundting, who departed in hot anger. On the Festival of SS. John and Paul, the 26th of June, at seven o'clock in the morning, or, as some say, at midday, he appeared again in the guise of a hunter with a curious red cap on his head, and he sounded his pipe in the lanes. At once came forth, not rats and mice, but children—boys and girls of four years old and upwards—and, moreover, the Burgermaster's grown-up daughter. All followed him, followed him out till they came to a hill, where he and they disappeared. So said a nursemaid, who, babe in arms, had felt the attraction from afar. Parents hastened, crowding through the gates, to seek their darlings, messengers were sent over land and water to pursue the guest; but everything was vain. In all, 130 children were amissing. Some have it that two—one blind, the other dumb, and apparently also deaf—came back again: the former, unable to point out the place of disappearance, could yet tell well enough why the Piper had been followed; while the mute knew the place, but had been insensible to the sound. A little lad who set off running in his shirt, and returned to fetch his coat, took up the pursuit too late to share the lot of his playmates.

This I believe to be a fair presentment of the story as it would now be told by one whose memory had not been led astray by latter-day literary adepts, who have elaborated the theme. The curious in chronology may perhaps take exception to my date, for authors offer a bewildering variety, ranging from 1259 to 1378. Sometimes a theory is accountable; sometimes the habit of there or