Emma S. Buchheim

“ We will first see whether any satisfactory explanation presents itself of that part of the story which we have already relegated to the rank of fable, and here we find that the Piper who by means of his music destroys obnoxious animals is not the sole property of the people of Hamelin. Like Wilhelm Tell he is common property in the realm of fiction. ”

“ The Piper and the rats have always been considered an essential part of the story. It seems impossible that the man on whom we have always looked as the cause of the catastrophe should in reality be only a secondary personage; but on turning to what is considered the earliest record of the tragedy of Hamelin we find it is merely to the effect "that on the 26th of June, 1284, one hundred and thirty children vanished into Mount Calvary," afterwards called the "Koppelberg." ”

“ In Ireland we actually meet with a legend of a bagpipe-player who decoyed a number of young people in the same manner that the ratcatcher of Hamelin led away the children. In many Teutonic myths we find that the soul leaves the body in the shape of a mouse, and it has occurred to one writer that the Piper is the god of death of the Aryan races, who is followed by the souls of the dead, represented in the legend as rats. ”