Seventeenth Century English Language Tellings of the Hamelin Tale

Poking around the archives, we find that several seventeenth century accounts of the tale are readily available to us, in for the most part set in the town we are perhaps most familiar with when it comes to pied piper legends: Hamelin.

Verstegan’s Account in Restitution of decayed intelligence, 1624

Let’s begin with Richard Verstegan’s Restitution of decayed intelligence, in antiquities. Concerning the most noble, and renowned English nation, which appeared in several editions; I quote from the 1624 edition, _”to be sold at the Kings Armes, in S Pauls Churchyard”, printed by John Norton, for Joyce Norton, and Richard Whitaker, pp85-7:

Verstegan’s Telling, Restitution of decayed intelligence

And now hath one digression drawne on another, for being by reason of speaking of these Saxons of Transyluania, put in mind of a most true, and marvelous strange accident that hapned in Saxony not many ages past, I cannot omit for the strangenesse thereof briefely hereby the way to set it downe.

There came into the Towne of Hamel in the Country of Brunswicke an old kind of companion, who for the fantastical Coate which he wore being wrought with sundry colours,was called: the pide Piper ; for a Piper he was, besides his other qualities. This fellow forsoot offered the towns-men for a certaine somme of money to rid the Towne of all the Rats that were in it (for at that time the Burgers were with that vermine greatly annoyed ) The accord in fine being made ; the pide Piper with a shrill Pipe went Piping thorow the streets, and forthwith the Rats came all running out of the Houses in great numbers after him ; all which he led into the River of Weaser and therein drowned them. This done, and no one Rat more perceived to be left in the Towne, hee afterward came to demand his reward according to his bargaine, but being told that the bargain was not made with him in good earnest, to wit, with an opinion that ever he could be able to doe such a feat : they cared not what they accorded unto, when they imagined it could never be deferued, and so never to be demanded : but neverthelesse seeing hee had done such an unlikely thing indeed, they were content to give him a good reward ; and so offered him farre lesse than he lookt for: but hee therewith discontented, said he would have his full recompence according to his bargain, but they utterly denyed to give it him, he threatened them with revenge; they bad him doe his worst, whereupon he betakes him againe to his Pipe ; and going thorow the streets as before, was followed of a number of boyes out at one of the Gates of the City, and comming to a little Hill there opened in the side thereof a wid hole, into the which himselfe & all the children being in number one hundreth and thirty, did enter ; and being entred, the Hill cloded up againe, and become as before. A boy that being lame,and came somewhat laggin behind the rest,seeing this that hapned, returned presently backe and told what he had seene, forthwith began great lamentation among the Parents for their Children,and men were sent out withall diligence, both by land, and by water to enquire if ought could be heard of them, but with all the enquiry they could possibly use, nothing more than is aforesaid could of them be understood. In memory whereof it was then ordained, that from thence-forth no Drumme, Pipe, or other instrument, should be sounded in the street leading to the gate thorow which they passed . nor no Oftery to be there holden. And it was also established that from that time forward in all publike writings that thould be made in thar Towne, after the date therein set downe of the yeere of our Lord, the date of the yeere of the going forth of their Childten shouldbe added, the which they have accordingly ever since continued. And this great wonder hapned on the 22, day of July in the yeere of our Lord, 1376.

The occasion now why this matter came unte my remembrance in speaking of Translvania, was for that some doe report that there are divers found among the Saxons in Transivania that have like surnames unto divers of the Burgers of Hamel, and will thereby seeme to infer, that this Iugler or pide Piper, might by negromancy have transported them thither, but this carrieth little appearance of truth, because it would have beene almost as great a wonder unto the Saxon of Transilvania to have had fo many strange children brought among them; they knew not how, as it were to those of Hamel to lose them: and they could not but have kept memory of so strange a thing, if indeed any such thing had there hapned.

An Account from Wanley’s “Wonders of the Little World”, 1678

From 1678, we have Nathaniel Wanley’s The wonders of the little world: or, a general history of man, published “[i]n six books”, and “Wherein … is shewed what man hath been from the first ages of the world … In respect of his body, senses, passions, affections … and many other particulars”. The story of the Pied Piper appears at p598:

Wanley’s Version, in Wonders of the Little World

28. At Hammel, a Town in the Dutchy of Brunswick, in the year of Christ 1284. upon the 26. day of June, the Town being grievously troubled with Rats and Mice, there came to them a Piper, who promised upon a certain rate to free them from them all ; it was agreed, he went from street to street, and playing upon his Pipe, drew after him out of the Town all that kind of Vermine, and then demanding his wages was denied it. Whereupon he began another tune, and there followed him one hundred and thirty Boys to a Hill called Kop-pen, situate on the North by the Road, where they perished, and were never seen after. This Piper was called the pyed Piper, because his cloaths were of feveral colours. This story is writ and religiously kept by them in their Annals at Hammel, read in their Books, and painted in their Windows, and in their Churches, of which I am a witness by my own sight. Their elder Magistrates, for the confirmation of the truth of this, are wont to write in conjundtion in their publick Books, such a year of Christ , and such a year of the Transmigration of the children, &c. It’s also observed in the memory of it, that in the street he passed out of, no Piper be admitted to this day. The street is called Burgelosestrasse ; if a Bride be in that street, till she is gone out of it, there is no dancing to be suffered.

[Wier. de prastig. Daemon.l.I. c. 16. p. 47. Schot. phys. curios. l. 3. c. 24. p. 519. Howels Ep. vol. I s. 6. epist. 59 p.241]

The citations in the work are to several earlier versions of the story.

Schott’s Physica Curiosa, 1662

Schot. phys. curios. sounds… curious… So where does that reference take us?

To Physica curiosa, t.1 by Kaspar Schott, dated 1662, pp.519-520, that’s where, albeit in the original Latin:

Schott’s Version, in Physica Curiosa

CAPUT XXIV.

De pueris. Hammelensibus. seductis à Mago.

Inter Mirabilia hominum meritò numerari potest exitusatque seductio puerorum Hammelae, quod oppidum est inferioris Saxoniae ad Visurgim fluvium situm. — Historiam narrant quàm plurimi Auctores, novissimè verò & omnium accuratissimè Samuel Erichium in Libello Germanicè conscripto, editoque Anno 1655. Eandem nos recitavimus ex P. Athanasio Kirchero in p. 2. Magiae nostrae lib. 4. Syntagm. 2. cap. 3. ubi tamen in numero anni, quo ea contigisse dicitur, error irrepsit : non enim anno Christi 460, sed 1282., aut 1284. contigit , eo quo sequitur modo.

Cùm dicti oppidi indigenae eo anno ingentibus murium agminibus infestarentur, malumque in tantum cresceret, ut nihil ferè sive fructum , quod eorum rosionibus non esset obnoxium , reperiretur ; vir quidam invisus ante hac, & staturae prodigiosae comparuit ; qui quidquid murium eo in oppido, eiusque districtu essect , confestim sublaturum se, dummodò de certa pecuniae summa secum paciscerentur, pollicitus est. Nec segnius quàm promisit, effecit. Nam promissá mercede, dictus vir expera, quâ cinctus erat, fistulam (utriculus is erat) extraxit: & simulatque eam inflavit, ingentia murium agmina ex omnibus domorum angulis ac foraminibus prorupêre, & aulaedum illum praeuntem extra oppidum ad flumen usque sunt secuta. Ibiauláediumd süccinctâ veste flumen ingredientem sorices secuti, unà omnes spontaneà submersione perierunt. Hoc peracto,vir ille condictam mercedem exposcit. Verum cum cives de pecunia promisss solvenda tergivcersarentur, minacibus illos verbis increpuit, asseruitque , nisi mercedem darent, futurum, ut aliam exigeret mercedem multò promissâ graviorem. Minae cum risu accepte sunt. Vertente igitur anno, die 26. Junii ,circa meridiem denuò vir dictus comparuit habitu venatoris, vultu terribili , purpureo inusitatae compositionis pileo ; fistulamque aliam longe à priori diversam simul ac insonuit ; ecce pueri ac puellae numero 130. derepentè confluunt, & ludionem extra oppidum tripudiantea aequuntur. Eat extra oppidum mons, feu potius collis, quem Calvariae montem (ópffelberg dicunt incolae loci illius) vocant, & in monte averna sat ampla, jumentorum stabulationi apta. In hanc cavernam unà secum omnes pueros duxit venator. Atque ab eo tempore nullus unquam puerorum comparuit amplius, nec unquam rescitum deinde , quid de iis factum, aut quò abiwrinae. Unica puella, quae infantem brachiis gestabat, & praeuntes assequi non poterat, rem à longé aapexit, & regressà oppidanos monuit ; qui agminatim omnes egressi, per loca omnia, & omnes angulos, liberos, sed frustra ,quaesiverunt.

Historiam hanc omnes Hammelenses, traditioneà majoribus acceptâ, veram esse restantur. Eandem exhibet pictura minuta in fenestra quadam Parochialis Ecclesiae oppidi, quam Kircherus, & multi alii, qui scriptis eam consignarunt, viderunt. Plurima alia in eodem oppido, & extra illud, extant vestigia, quae accuratè recenset suprà dictus Erichius, testis oculatus. Addunc multi, oppidanos, ab illo tempore, quo restam insolens & funesta contigit, annos fuos in instrumentis publicis computare solitos ab anno Exitus puerorum suorum.

De re gesta minimè dubito , non tam propter unanimen multorum Scriptorum consensum, quàm propter constantem incolarum urbistraditionem. Magicáarte, & ope diaboli, non visonisistulae, utrumque egressium, murium inquam, & puerorum, contigisse dixiloco citato, & nunc iterum affero, nec ullas est qui aliter sentiat. Lege Erichiicitati libellum, cui citulus, Exodus Hamelensiss, impressum Hanover 1655.

The translation according to Google Translate is as follows:

Chapter 24

Of the boys. Hammelensis. having been seduced by the Magus.

Among the wondrous works of men, the seduction of the boys of Hammela, which is a town situated on the Wesurgis, is situated on the river of Lower Saxony. - How many authors tell the story, but most accurately and most accurately of all, Samuel Erichius in a book written and published in the year 1655. We have recited the same from P. Athanasius Kircher in p. 2. Our Magick. 4. Syntagm. Chapter 2. 3. Where, however, an error crept in in the number of the year in which it is said to have happened; for it did not happen in the year of Christ 460, but 1282, or 1284, in the manner that follows.

When the natives of the said town were infested that year with huge bands of mice, and the evil grew to such an extent that it was found to have almost no fruit or fruit, which was not liable to their delusions; a certain man not seen before this, and of prodigious stature appeared; who, he promised that he would immediately remove whatever mice were in that town and district, so long as they made an agreement with him of a certain sum of money. And he accomplished it with less energy than he promised. For the promised reward, the said man, with the experience of which he was wearing, drew out the tube (that was the utricle) and as soon as he puffed it up, huge bands of mice had broken out from all corners and holes of the houses, and followed that court, leading him beyond the town to the river. The shrew followed Ibiaulædius on entering the river in his robe, and all perished by one spontaneous submersion. Having performed this, that man demanded the payment of a payment. But when the citizens were hesitant to be paid respecting the money promised, he rebuked them with threatening words, and asserted that unless they were to give a reward, it would come to pass that he would demand another reward much heavier than the one promised. Threats are accepted with a smile. At the turn of the year, on the 26th of June, around noon, the said man appeared again in the garb of a hunter, with a terrible countenance, and a purple cap of unusual composition; and at the same time he sounded another tube, very different from the former; Behold, the boys and the girls, in number 130, come together suddenly, and are leveled in dancing outside the town. There goes a mountain out of the town, or rather a hill, which the inhabitants of that place call the mountain of Skull (they call it Opffelberg), and on the mountain is fairly large, suitable for the stalling of cattle. The hunter led all the boys together into this cave. And from that time no boy was ever seen again, nor was it ever known then, what was done of them, or that of the abiwrinae. The only girl, who was carrying a baby in her arms, and could not overtake those who went in front, gazed upon the matter from afar, and warned the townsmen on returning. who, all going out in troops, in every quarter, and in every corner, sought their children, but in vain.

All this history of Hammeles, having received from our ancestors tradition, remains to be true. The same is shown in a small picture in a window of the parish church of the town, which Kircher and many others who signed it in writing saw it. There are many other traces in the same town, and beyond that, which the said Erichius, an eyewitness witness, accurately reviews above. Besides, many of the townspeople, from the time in which an unusual and fatal cord fell, were accustomed to calculate their years in the public media from the year of the deaths of their children.

I have no doubt in the least respecting these events, not so much on account of the unanimous consent of many writers, but on account of the constant tradition of the inhabitants. Magicaartus, and by the help of the devil, not you visionist, I say that both of them came out, mice, and boys, I said that it happened at a rapid pace; there is one who thinks otherwise. Read the little book of Erichitia, whose title is Exodus of Hamelensis, printed in Hanover, 1655.

Howell’s Account in Epistolae Ho-Elianae, 1643

Another account, Epistolae Ho-Elianae, “the familiar letters of James Howell, Historiagraher Royal to Charles II”, p357, dated 1st October, 1643, and in edited from Jospeh Jacobs in 1892, published by David Nutt, provides a slightly different take on mass child abductions, at p357:

Howell’s Account in Epistolae Ho-Elianae

XLIX.

To Mr. E. P.

Sir,

I SAW such prodigious things daily done these few years past, that I had resolv’d with myself to give over wondering at anything: yet a passage happen’d this week, that forc’d me to wonder once more, because it is without parallel. It was, that some odd fellows went skulking up and down London streets, and with Figs and Raisins allur’d little Children, and so purloin’d them away from their Parents, and carried them a Ship-board far beyond Sea, where, by cutting their hair, and other devices, they so disguised them, that their Parents could not know them. This made me think upon that miraculous passage in Hamelen, a Town in Germany, which I hop’d to have pass’d thro’ when I was in Hamburgh, had we return’d by Holland ; which was thus (nor would I relate it to you were there not some ground of truth for it). The said Town of Hamelen was annoy’d with Rats and Mice ; and it chanc’d, that a pied-coated Piper came thither, who covenanted with the chief Burgers for such a Reward, if he could free them quite from the said Vermin, nor would he demand it till a twelvemonth and a day after. The agreement being made, he began to play on his Pipes, and all the Rats and the Mice follow’d him to a great Lough hard by, where they all perish’d ; so the Town was infected no more. At the end of the year the pied Piper return’d for his reward ; the Burgers put him off with slightings and neglect, offering him some small matter ; which he refusing, and staying some days in the Town, one Sunday morning at high Mass, when most people were at Church, he fell to play on his Pipes, and all the Children up and down follow’d him out of the Town, to a great Hill not far off, which rent in two, and open’d, and let him and the children in, and so clos’d up again. This happen’d a matter of 250 years since; and in that Town they date their bills and bonds, and other instruments in Law, to this day, from the year of the going out of their Children: Besides, there is a great Pillar of stone at the foot of the said Hill, whereon this story is engraven.

No more now, for this is enough in conscience for one time : So I am — Your most affectionate Servitor, J. H.

Fleet, 1 Oct. 1643.

The Deeper History of the Pied Piper Tale

For a quick history of the original tale of the Pied Pipe of Hamelin, WIkipedia is a good a place as any to start: The Pied Piper of Hamelin (Wikipedia).

If you’d rather listen to various accounts of the history, here are a couple to get you started.

First, an informal account:

And then something a little more formal from an independent scholar:

For various retellings of the Pied Piper of Hamelin story, including Grimms’ account, see Ashliman’s The Pied Piper of Hameln and related legends from other towns.