Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 2 1884.djvu/216

 208 Ireland we actually meet with a legend of a bagpipe-player who decoyed a number of young people in the same manner that the ratcatcher of Hamelin led away the children. In many Teutonic myths we find that the soul leaves the body in the shape of a mouse, and it has occurred to one writer that the Piper is the god of death of the Aryan races, who is followed by the souls of the dead, represented in the legend as rats. Without going so far as to look upon the whole legend as a new form of the dance of death, we may consider that the musician whose magical attributes give him power over man and beast belongs to the same category as elves, gnomes, and other mythical creatures, who love to mislead human beings. We shall presently see how he came to be connected with our legend.

As regards the historical basis of the tale some historians endeavoured to bring it in connection with a battle fought in 1259 or 1260 between the Bishop of Minden and the people of Hamelin at Sedemunde. The latter were defeated, and a number of them having been taken prisoners they were led away, "disappearing behind the mountains," and returning after some time by the roundabout way of Transylvania. There are two objections to this explanation which has found very general acceptance. The dates of the two occurrences do not coincide, and the battle has been fully described in the chronicles. It is scarcely probable that an event so well remembered as the battle of Sedemunde should have given rise to a distinct legend. It seems therefore that we must seek for another interpretation of the legend, and this is to be found by connecting it with the strange psychological epidemic which prevailed to such an alarming extent in the Middle Ages, namely, the dancing mania. Men, women, and children, seized by this disease, danced till they fell down utterly exhausted. Then they slept, and awoke refreshed. The disease was epidemic; sometimes the crowd numbered from 500 to 1000 dancers who did not always remain in one place, but wandered dancing from town to town. They were much excited by music, and the authorities sometimes hired musicians in order that they might hasten the exhaustion which preceded the healing sleep. Though the disease did not attain its full height till some centuries after the date ascribed to the Hamelin incident, we know that it had already broken out. In 1237 the young