When a small village is dealing with a horrible rat infection, a mysterious dressed in bright colors arrives, promising to take care of their little problem in exchange for a hefty payment. The villagers agreed readily, and the man led all of the rodents away and drowned them in a nearby river by playing his pipe. When he returned, the people of the village refused to pay, and the Piper left, swearing revenge. Later that year on Saint John and Paul's day, the Piper came back to town while all of the adults were gathered in church and their children were waiting outside. Playing his magical pipe, he lured one hundred and thirty children out of the village, where they were never seen again.

So needless to say, the fairy tale of the Pied Piper is all kinds of messed up. Especially since it's based off of a very true story.

There's a small village in Germany named Hamelin, and the first written piece of the town's history starts off with "It's been one hundred years since our children left". In the Lueneburg manuscript, it describes the tragic event as so: "In the year of 1284, on the day of Saints John and Paul on June 26, by a piper, clothed in many kinds of colours, 130 children born in Hamelin were seduced, and lost at the place of execution near the koppen."

Yeah. That actually happened. So what happened?

If there actually was a man who took the children, his motives probably weren't revenge-based. The rat element of the fairy tale weren't added in until the sixteenth century, so the mysterious piper probably didn't have any contact with the village before he took the children. There's a theory that the Piper is a symbolic symbol of death, and all of the Hamelin children fell victim to some horrible disease. Another theories suggest that the Piper was perhaps a heretic sect who lured the children away with false promises for ritual dancing where they all could have died in a sudden landslide or sinkhole.

There was also an epidemic that was recorded to have been occurring throughout that time period: a Mass Psychogenic Illness taking the form of Dancing Mania. Yeah. That was a thing. Dancing Mania was a social phenomenon that occurred multiple times throughout the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. Basically, people would just randomly burst into dance and wouldn't stop until they literally collapsed from exhaustion. It's possible that the children all got Dancing Mania and danced out of the village, with or without the Piper, who could have prompted the psychogenic illness in the kids.

Other theories suggest that the villagers lied about what happened to their children. A military leader/recruiter might have come to the village, seeking children for a Children's Crusade, which was a mission to go to Israel and take it back from the Muslims residing there. The children could have left on their own or their parents sent them away. Either way, if this is what happened, then the children would be either have been killed on the treacherous journey or murdered in battle, leaving the adults of Hamelin to lie to the King and Church about what happened to their children to avoid getting punished.

The story of the missing children of Hamelin is a mystery never solved. Historians agree that the children indeed went missing en masse, although the 'how's and 'why's remain unanswered. One hundred and thirty children, just gone without a trace. The phrase "It's time to pay the piper" is one that emerged from the tale, but really, who, or what, was the piper? Why does the piper need to be paid? And what did the piper do with all of those children so long ago?

(Oh, by the way, I found all of my quotes from Hamelin written history from here: http://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/disturbing-true-story-pied-piper-hamelin-001969.)