Even today, autoimmune diseases are often mischaracterized as psychosomatic or “hysterical.”Īt the end of the Disney version, the disabled boy drops his crutches - suddenly cured.

Vitus Dance), an autoimmune disease that causes rapid, uncontrollable movements. In one theory, the children had Sydenham’s chorea (historically called St. In any story about diseases, the disability angle is important. After passing the Calvary near the Koppenberg they disappeared forever.” An entry in the 1384 town records says: “It is 100 years since our children left.” 1284 – on the 26th of June – the day of St John and St Paul – 130 children – born in Hamelin – were led out of the town by a piper wearing multicolored clothes. A plaque on a house called the the Pied Piper House reads: “A.D. However, it can’t explain the repetition of the specific date June 26, 1284. This makes some historians theorize the mass disappearance and rat infestation were two separate incidents, combined into one folktale centuries later. Medieval European towns employed rat-catchers during infestations, but rats carried many other diseases in addition to the Plague. Many people assume The Pied Piper is about the bubonic plague, but as the BBC points out, the dates don’t correspond to any known Plague outbreaks. This haunting German folktale may have some basis in fact, but its exact origins are lost in time.

Browning included a moral, warning young audiences never to lie or break promises. Authors who retold it include the Brothers Grimm, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Robert Browning, and Bertholt Brecht. The Pied Piper story has been translated into over 30 languages. Disney changed this into a paradise or “Joyland.” Instead of drowning in the River Weser, Disney’s rats - who look eerily like Mickey Mouse - disappear into a giant cheese wheel. Earlier retellings have grim endings: the children are drowned or trapped in a cave or mountain.

As revenge, he hypnotizes the town’s children with his music and leads them away, never to be seen again.Īs usual, Disney toned down a folktale whose traditional versions are even more harrowing. He does, but the town now refuses to pay him. The mayor promises him money if he succeeds. Here’s the basic plot: in the 13th century, a piper wearing pied, or multicolored, clothing promises to rid the German town Hamelin of a rat infestation. The Silly Symphonies Disney short is from 1933, but it’s an incredibly grim story for a kids’ cartoon in any era. I first encountered the story “The Pied Piper of Hamelin” when I was five, watching a marathon of Saturday morning cartoons.

The poem the pied piper of hamelin