SILENT READING for 10 minutes

The Pied Piper

Lesson 1: Using image to establish a
story and learning about background
event that inspired it
 Extension 2: Write another paragraph about the
What’s the story? story behind the picture, discussing another detail
from the image.
Fill in the chart with details
from the image and ideas
about what they represent.
 What was the story?
• In 1284, while the town of Hamelin was suffering from a rat
infestation, a pPiper dressed in multicolored ("pied") clothing
appeared, claiming to be a rat-catcher. He promised the Mayor a
solution to their problem with the rats. The Mayor, in turn,
promised to pay him for the removal of the rats. The Piper accepted
and played his pipe to lure the rats into the Weser River, where all
but one drowned.
• Despite the Piper's success, the Mayor reneged on his promise and
refused to pay him the full sum. He tried to blame the Piper for
bringing the rats himself in an extortion attempt. Enraged, the Piper
stormed out of the town, vowing to return later to take revenge.

The oldest known

picture showing the
story of ‘The Pied
Piper’.
 What happened next?
Read the text and highlight the key information. You will need to
summarise it later on.
• On Saint John and Paul's Day, while the adults were in church, the Piper
returned dressed in green and playing his pipe. This attracted the town's
children: 130 of them followed him out of town, into a cave and were
never seen again.
• Depending on the version, at most three children remained behind: one
was lame and could not follow quickly enough, the second was deaf and
could not hear the music, and the last was blind and unable to see where
he was going. These three informed the villagers of what had happened
when they came out from church.
• Other versions relate that the Pied Piper led the children to the top of
Koppelberg Hill, where he took them to a beautiful land, or a place called
Koppenberg Mountain, or Transylvania, or that he led them into the
Weser with the rats and they all drowned. Some versions state that the
Piper returned the children after payment or that he returned the children
after the villagers paid several times the original amount of gold.
 How do we know?
• The earliest mention of the story seems to have been on a
stained-glass window placed in the Church of Hamelin
c.1300. The window was described in several accounts
between the 14th and 17th centuries. It was destroyed in
1660. Based on the descriptions, a modern version of the
window has been created by historian Hans Dobbertin. It
features the colourful figure of the Pied Piper and several
figures of children dressed in white.
• This window is generally considered to have been created in
memory of a tragic historical event for the town. Also,
Hamelin town records start with this event. The earliest
written record is from the town chronicles in an entry from
1384 which states: "It is 100 years since our children left."
• Despite centuries of research, no explanation for the event
is universally accepted as true. In any case, the rats were
first added to the story in a version from c. 1559 and are
absent from earlier accounts.
 If not rats…?
• Natural causes – Some theories are that children died of natural causes, such
as disease or starvation, and that the Piper was a symbolic figure of Death.
Other suggestions include the children drowning in the river Weser, being
killed in a landslide or dying during an epidemic. Another idea is that the
Hamelin children were lured away by a pagan or heretic sect to forests near
Coppenbrügge (the mysterious Koppen "hills" of the poem) for ritual dancing
where they all perished during a sudden landslide or collapsing sinkhole.
• Emigration theory – This is based on the idea that by the 13th century the
area had too many people, resulting in most people being poor serfs. It is
thought that the children could have been sold to a recruiter from the Baltic
region of Eastern Europe, a practice that was not uncommon at the time.
• The Pied Piper could have been a ‘lokator’ – often brightly-dressed and silver-
tongued, they roamed northern Germany trying to recruit unemployed youths
to settle in the East.
• Some believe that Hamelin youths ended up in Poland. Research on Hamelin
surnames has uncovered that they are featured in modern Polish phonebooks!
 Working with a partner, make notes to
Summarising the summarise the information you have
information read.
What happened after the
Overview of the story children disappeared?
• •
• •
• •

How we know
The story of Alternative
what we know The Pied Piper theories
• •
• •
• •

Extension: What do you think really happened? Why do you think

that theory is the most plausible?
 Homework
Create a title page
in your exercise
book for this unit.
Can you include
information you
have learned in
today’s lesson?
 Before you go…
…tell me one
interesting thing
that you’ve learned
today.