Tales of the German Imagination from the Brothers Grimm to Ingeborg Bachmann (Penguin Classics) Read Online Free PDF Page A

a considerable compensation, to rid the city of all mice and rats. The burghers of Hameln came to an agreement with him, assuring a certain sum of money. The rat catcher pulled out a little pipe and blew on it, and then the rats and mice came running out of every house and gathered round him. And when he determined that there were none left, he headed out of the city and they all followed him, and he led them to the bank of the River Weser. There he undressed and walked into the water, whereupon all the rodents followed and, diving into the depths, promptly drowned.
    But no sooner were the burghers delivered from the infestation than they thought twice about paying the promised price; coming up with all kinds of excuses, they refused to give the man what he asked. He stormed off angry and embittered.
    At seven in the morning, others say at noon, on 26 June, St John’s and St Paul’s Day, he reappeared, this time dressed as a hunter with a strange red hat, his face twisted into a terrible grimace, and once again let his pipe be heard in the streets of Hameln.
    Presently, instead of rats and mice, children in great numbers, boys and girls as young as four, came running, among them also the grown daughter of the
Bürgermeister
. They allfollowed him and he led them into the cleft in a mountain, where they and he disappeared.
    This was witnessed by a nursemaid with a child in her arm who followed him from afar, turned around thereafter and brought word of it back to the city. With heavy hearts, the distraught parents searched high and low for their lost children; the mothers let out a pitiful wailing and weeping. Messengers were immediately sent out to comb every body of water and square inch of land in the vicinity, enquiring if anyone had seen hide or hair of the children – but to no avail. In all, a hundred and thirty children were lost.
    It is said by some that two who had lagged behind, returned; one of them was blind, the other deaf. The blind one could not show, but only tell how they’d followed the piper; and the deaf one, on the other hand, indicated the place where the others disappeared, but had not heard a sound. Others tell that a little lad who followed in his shirtsleeves turned back to fetch his coat, which is why he survived the misfortune; for, once he returned, the others had already disappeared into the hole in a hill that can be seen to this day.
    The street along which the children passed on their way out the gate was still, in the middle of the eighteenth century (as it is today) called the Street of Silence, since no dancing or music was permitted. Indeed, when a bride was serenaded on her way to church, the musicians had to stop playing on that street. The mountain near Hameln in which the children disappeared is called the Poppenberg; to the left and right of it two stone crosses were erected. Some say the children were led into a cave and came out again in Siebenbürgen.
    The burghers of Hameln had the occurrence recorded in their civic register and made a custom of counting the years and days elapsed since the loss of their children. According to Seyfried, 22 rather than 26 June is the recorded date. A plaque with the following lines hangs on the wall of the Rathaus:
In 1284, the year of our Lord
    Hameln registered the sad record
    Of a hundred and thirty children here born
    By a piper nabbed and ever mourned.
    And on the new gate of the city is inscribed:
Centrum ter denos cum magnus ab urbe puellos
    Duxerat ante annos CCLXXII condita porta fuit.
    In the year 1572 the
Bürgermeister
had the story depicted in the pane of a stained-glass window along with an accompanying caption, which is unreadable today. A medallion marking the event is also affixed.

The Sandman
    1816–17
    E. T. A. Hoffmann
Nathaniel to Lothar
You must surely all be worried sick not to have had word from me in such a long, long time. Mother is, no doubt, mad at me, and Clara may well believe that I am living it up here, and have