There is a a famous folktale, the Pied Piper of Hamelin, about a pest control expert hired by the town of Hameln in Lower Saxony to deal with its rat problem. The rat catcher was known to dress all in green (or multicolors, depending on the version of the story) and had a magic flute he used to lure rats out of town and to their deaths in a nearby river.
But when the town failed to keep its end of the bargain and refused payment for his services, the Pied Piper turned his magic flute on the village children, luring them into a cave or (depending on the version of the story) into the same river where the rats had been dispatched.
The folktale seems to have been based on real-life events. In the 13th Century hundreds of children disappeared from Hameln and turned up later in other parts of Germany. The children, who saw no future for themselves in their dreary hometown, had been lured – not by a rat catcher – but by recruiters from regions in the east looking for young and healthy settlers and promising them a fresh start.
If only the grownups had kept their promises.
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