Eratosphere - On beyond zebra!

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It's not entirely clear that the Transylvanian tribe came from Hamelin. But that's why I amended my comment to "homocidal kidnapper."

Don't get me wrong. I totally love the Browning poem, especially with the gorgeous Kate Greenaway illustrations. I would never think of canceling it. I just think the piper may have overreacted a bit. (He would have had my blessing had he merely killed the noddy mayor).

Quote:

But how the Mayor was on the rack
And the wretched Council's bosoms beat,
As the Piper turned from the High Street
To where the Weser rolled its waters
Right in the way of their sons and daughters!
However he turned from South to West
And to Koppelberg Hill his steps addressed, [...]

The fact that the Piper didn't drown the kids then and there, though he knew he could escape in a way that the adults couldn't follow, suggests that he drew the line at homicide.

Then again, since he seemed to care about settling financial scores, yet he never contacted the parents to demand a ransom, it's possible that he thought he could make more money through human trafficking than through extortion. After all, rounding up, grooming, dehumanizing (literally, as donkeys), and selling "stupid little boys" (victim-blame, much?) into slavery is what motivated the greedy Coachman of Pleasure Island fame in Carlo Collodi's The Adventures of Pinocchio in 1883. The Pied Piper legend is far older, of course, but Browning's poem was written in 1842. Only about 40 years earlier than Collodi's novel.

Disney's version of Pinocchio in 1940 sure pours on the sexual trafficking hints in this scene. Apparently there's a "tobacco use" warning on Pinocchio in Disney+, as if that's the only thing parents should worry about in the film.

But I've always thought of the Pied Piper as similar to a powerful fairy or a Greek supernatural being, both of whom were said often to appear in disguise to test mortals, and who seemed untroubled when innocents got caught in their webs as collateral damage. Their magical attention could end in disaster whether it was favorable or negative. Best to minimize one's dealings with them altogether.

Yo! It’s folklorified fiction. Why the forensic anatomy?

Because Rogerbob's a lawyer, so I was interested in knowing how literal his use of the word "homicidal" was.

And also because I'm tediously obsessive about why society thinks certain things are important for kids to know, either culturally or practically.

One thing I like about Browning's version of "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" is that it's clear that the kids did absolutely nothing wrong. They were victimized because the adults in power were greedy and dishonest. The kids and their parents (except for the politicians) were powerless to prevent what happened. No victim blame for most of them, for a change. How refreshing!

While you are troubling over the Pied Piper, in whatever version, I'd recommend dipping in to the early Taviani brothers' film, Il Prato, (hugely worth seeing in its own right) for the delightfully benign fantasy sequence with the young Isabella Rossellini piping the children away from a town sunk in debauchery (in this case it's actually San Gimignano). Their destination is a rural idyll where "even the horses have wings" in soft-focus, sunkist meadows and orchards. The film, in the end, offers a very moving and almost tragic modern meditation on both Italy and on its characters' destinies - but the 'piper' episode will live in most viewers' memories.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Julie Steiner (Post 463265)

I still don't think "homicidal" applies, although he was clearly a psychopath who didn't care about punishing the innocent, so long as he felt he'd gotten even with those who'd double-crossed him. If the Pied Piper had intended to murder the children out of pure spite, he could have marched them into the same river in which he'd drowned the rats, before their parents' eyes:

The fact that the Piper didn't drown the kids then and there, though he knew he could escape in a way that the adults couldn't follow, suggests that he drew the line at homicide.

Then again, since he seemed to care about settling financial scores, yet he never contacted the parents to demand a ransom, it's possible that he thought he could make more money through human trafficking than through extortion. After all, rounding up, grooming, dehumanizing (literally, as donkeys), and selling "stupid little boys" (victim-blame, much?) into slavery is what motivated the greedy Coachman of Pleasure Island fame in Carlo Collodi's The Adventures of Pinocchio in 1883. The Pied Piper legend is far older, of course, but Browning's poem was written in 1842. Only about 40 years earlier than Collodi's novel.

Disney's version of Pinocchio in 1940 sure pours on the sexual trafficking hints in this scene. Apparently there's a "tobacco use" warning on Pinocchio in Disney+, as if that's the only thing parents should worry about in the film.

But I've always thought of the Pied Piper as similar to a powerful fairy or a Greek supernatural being, both of whom were said often to appear in disguise to test mortals, and who seemed untroubled when innocents got caught in their webs as collateral damage. Their magical attention could end in disaster whether it was favorable or negative. Best to minimize one's dealings with them altogether.

Wouldn't it have been more cruel for the parents not even knowing where their children were: whether they were dead or alive, than at least knowing for certain that they were all dead (which would have happened if they had been lead into the river)? Maybe the Piper had a great understanding of human psychology, and played off the trauma of not knowing.

It wasn't the piper who told them the "truth" of it. It was the disabled child who got left behind. Shall we throw him into the mix? Is he just a device, a Messenger in the tradition of Greek drama, or is he a cultural reference to be reckoned with in the context of this thread?

I suppose we can regard him as a "device," Ann, since we are also given the account of one of the rats that was lured by the piping, and I doubt we are being asked to believe that the rat actually left behind a diary record of the events.

The disabled child's account of what it was like to be under the spell of the Pied Piper is not unlike that of the rats. Both the rats and the children were promised their own versions of paradise, but we know for certain that it was a lie in the case of the rats. The Weser washed o'er them and they were killed. This leads me to think that the paradise promised the disabled child was also most likely a lie designed to make the children follow.

Cameron, you're right that the parents didn't necessarily think their children were dead when they entered the portal, since the story recounts that they tried to send out word to the Piper that they would pay any price to have the children return. Which further underscores just how evil the Piper was, since he was being offered full satisfaction (and then some) of the debt that caused him to take the children away in the first place yet he wouldn't budge.

But the people never found the Piper, so were unable to offer him anything. They had once chance and they blew it.

True, but it's hard to believe the Piper would have failed to get word that they wanted him to return and that they were prepared to pay him handsomely. I don't think the problem was that they had lost the Piper's phone number or email address. The moment the Mayor said he would not pay him his fee, the Piper was no longer interested in the money but in punishing the town. He says, "And folks who put me in a passion/ May find me pipe to another fashion," and then he walks out to the street and executes his punishment without even trying to negotiate or talk them into backing down.

Again, my only point is that I think that Browning got the moral wrong and tells the story as if the villain is the Mayor and not the Piper. The Mayor, of course, was an unethical businessman who deserves our scorn. But the Piper's offense was on a whole other level of badness.

But this isn't the only tale from folklore where the moral has gone wrong. For example, the boy who cried wolf. I think the moral of that tale is that if you no longer trust the watchman, then replace him. It's true that the boy had undermined his own credibility, but what was the point of keeping him on the job if they were just going to ignore him when he sounded the alarm? Their foolish decision to do so cost the boy his life and cost them their sheep a well.