Hey, everybody, it's your buddy Josh. And for this week's select, I've chosen our May two thousand and eighteen episode on the Pied Piper, one of those rare fairy tales that actually may be rooted in fact and history, and it's a good one. It's got a weird start for some reason. I almost sound like I'm mad at Chuck, but rest assured I wasn't. We finally catch our feet a few minutes into it, and then the episode really takes off. So I hope it takes you on a wild thrill ride like it did me listening to it again. And either way, just sit back and enjoy, as I know you will. Our episode on the Pied Piper. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles w. Hu Bryant, and there's Jerry over there. This is stuff if you should know, fairy Tale edition. Jerry is supposedly on vacation. Yeah, what's going on? But she came in here just for us. Why Jerry? I think she feels beholden. That's nice, which is weird because she's we've had guest producers. I don't know. Maybe she feels like her job is threatened. Is today the day I die? Oh? Jeesus, hope Jerry knows it. Can't we at least get these two in the can first? Yeah? Well probably unless something really crazy happens in the next hour and two. Yeah, that'll give me time to get in touch with like the five people I have on my list to replace you. Ye, I know the five Bono right Obama? Right, Michael Stipe, Michael Stipe, Bobby Fisher. I think there was one more. I can't remember, Bobby Fisher, the chess player. Yeah, that's a little random. Well I want to correct that episode and Optimus Prime that's the fifth one, that's right. Yeah, uh, chucker. Have you ever heard of fairy Tale before? Yeah? We uh, we did two very good episodes. Oh, if you say so yourself, know these were good. I don't often say that, but in November of two thousand and fifteen, we did it back to backer with the dark origins of fairy tales and how the Grimm's fairy Tales work or the grand Brothers. We had fairy tale fever, we did, but man, we licked it. So did you go back and listen to him and you're like, wow, these are good or you just remember them being good. I remember them being good, okay, and being especially kind of proud of those too. Really that's fantastic. Yeah, that's how I feel about your limb is torn off? Now what that was a good one. It's a good title about reattachment surgery. Remember that. Yeah? I think that that titles all you. That's a Josh Clark title. You've got some good titles out there too. What's the deal with blank? You know who's really good at coming up with titles? Yeah? Where the streets have no name? Right? Where the where the streets have no drums? For a dam dude, you just did it. So we're talking about fairy tales today, specifically, specifically, we're talking about the fairy tale of the Pie Piper of Hamlet, and as far as fairy tales go, it seems to be a little different than other fairy tales. And the reason why it's a little different is because, horrifically, it's people think scholars, not just you know, average truck right, like, real deal scholars think that something actually happened that formed the basis of this fairy tale. Right, Whereas with Hansel and Gretel it wasn't based on some witchy lady who ate children. No, but that one might have had some basis in fact too. How about like rumpel Stiltskin. Probably not based in fact? Right? You remember the little guy who like you trick him into saying his own name, A little guy with a big heart. I don't think he had a big heart. He had an insatiable sexual appetite, is what it was. Oh, the little girl with the big heart was Bono? Right man, We're gonna get so many emails from people being like, layoff Bono. What's what's with the bono references? Who's Bono? They must work with that Bono guy? I wish so, chuck Um the pie Piper. The reason why we say it might be based in fact is because there's actual, like historic evidence that kind of supports this thing. And you can find it in this town of Hamlin, which is a real place. It's not a made up like fairy tale land like you know, ods your first clue. Yeah, most fairy tales are not set in an actual place, right. I don't know, are they know they're just made up? Or they're in a very vague place, or they take place in a larger place, like, oh, in Germany one day, or in Bavaria one day, not like in this town, right, that actually existed at the time we're saying it did. Which is another thing too, because if you look at the actual fairy tales, you'll get to in a second, there's like a specific date. Yeah, that also is very unusual. For so the more you dig into it, the more you're like, yeah, this might have actually happened. And then what you think, oh, this might have actually happened, then you're struck with some of the greatest dread human being can experience, because there's something bad happened, is what happened? Let's talk about it, all right? Well, let's get into the original fairy tale, the Grimm's Brothers Tale of the Pipe Piper. It was not even Irish and German. Um Jane McGrath, good old Jane from back in the day, wrote this one, and she points out that it is a tale, a cautionary tale about governance as well as taking responsibility for financial agreements. She's right, but it put in that way, it seems a little funny, Yeah, but it is twelve eighty four in Hamlin in Germany, and there was a rat infestation in the town at the time, and the mayor and this is the fairy tale you're going over right, yeah, yeah, And so that the mayor of the town didn't know what to do. The Burger meister, Oh yeah, maister Burger, the stranger comes into town and war and I didn't know what pid even meant. I didn't either. What is it? Multi colored? Yeah, he wore multi colored clothes, pied multi colored clothes. That's all he was. He was a piper who were colorful clothing. Had nothing to do with eating pies or I thought walking on his feet, you know, you thought that's what it meant. Yeah, why because I think, like a like pedestrian comes from pied p Well, but I think it's like maybe Italian or something that certainly makes more sense than me having no clue. Yeah, but I was way off, so it doesn't matter. He did walk. That was the other reason I thought that too. So his outfit looked a little weird. Apparently multicolored people didn't dress like that, I reckon. I saw though that it was also like, um, like a splendid outfit that he gets attracted a lot of attention, and people were like, I wish I could, I wish I had the cohones, dressed like you. Pie. Piper dance around with a band. Uh and he had a called it a musical pipe or some kind of flute, not a smoking pipe. Heads no uh. And he hears about this rat problem. He comes into town. He drags his fingernails along the chalkboard and gets everyone attention. And the down meeting says, I'll kill that shark. Oh, you gotta do it, but no, no, no, I'll kill the rats. Yeah, but in the voice I can't do quint well whatever, you can do anything. You're like the rich little of this this company. Jerry's laughing at us for no reason. She so sick of this man. She's really tickled today, Jerry, are you stoned? No, she's been smoking her own magical pipe. So they agree on a price to get rid of the rats. Piper takes out his his little his little hand flute. Yeah, yeah, I don't know if that's what it's called. But the price is important. Can I go into the price for a second. So he initially said that he would get rid of the rats for a thousand florins, which is either coins or money from Italy or France or the Netherlands, but money a thousand a lot of the time, thousand pieces of money. And this this town of Hamlin was so overrun by rats. Apparently all their cats had died. Though yes they got they beat the cats, said, I didn't see explained what happened to the cats, just that the cats died, and that's why the town was overrun, okay, which is a weird little thing, don't you think? Yeah, because my first thing was like, why a pie piper just get some cats? The cats had all died? All right, good thinking, chuck um. But they say a thousand florins, will give you fifty thousand florins if you get rid of these rats. Our problem is so bad, and he says done. But was that a facetious offer? I think it was a desperate a desperate boast. Okay. But the pipe piper I was like, all right, I'll agree to your terms. I just wanted a thousand, but fifty thousand it is. And they went, I think we ever spent I regret saying that you should hear the guy so he pulls out the instrument. He um starts playing. As the story goes, all the rats congregate around him, and he leaps about and dances through town into the Weser River, which the rats drowned, which is complete um fabrication, because rats are very good swimmers. They really are. I thought about that too. I even looked it up. They're good swimmers. Not just rats you've seen it's rats in general. Yeah. I mean the first thing, honestly, when I heard that, the first thing that made me think that was like, wait a minute, first blood, he's in that a band in mind chat, Those rats are swimming all over the place. Yeah, So I looked it up. I was like, is that true? And apparently rats are really good swimmers, better than others too. So this fairy tale stinks of BS already. Okay, but the story goes that the rats followed this guy in a trance to the river, whereupon they drowned. Maybe they were in the trance and that was why they couldn't swim, because they were just so lulled by his his hand flute, his smooth jazz. Should you take a break there and finish the story after? Oh it's quite a cliff banger, all right, let's do that. Alright, Chuck, We're back to lay it on them. Man. That was that was high class. Well, they drown all the rats. The pie piper is successful. Everyone parties German style, which is to say they probably got hammered on eight eight ounce beers. Have you ever been to Germany? You ever had the beers there? The big Yeah? I mean they've got big old beers there for sure. And they have lids on their their mugs too, because you know, there's so much of it you can just set it down, save it for later. But I don't think they save it for later. The beer gardener went two did not have the lids. Maybe I've just seen in those on TV. But what they did have was a four and a half foot tall woman with popeye sized foe arms carrying six of those giant like like a pro, not like a bro. They were pros. Well two, it's probably sold to the beer garden at a young age and was raised to that. Please, that's not the case, um, all right, So where are we townspeople are partying? They're they're getting hammered, They're singing, They're they're they're prosting, singing their German beer hall. Uh songs as they are want to do and then dude says, uh, what's up with that? All those florins? Yeah, he's like, everybody, I'm really glad that you enjoyed my work, but now it's time for me to go pay me. And did they just stiff them or did they say, well, let's go back to the thousand. Uh? They said, we're not giving you fifty thou florins. What you We thought you were going to get rid of these rests through hard work. You just played some flute, Like that's cool that you can do that with the flute, but that's not really work. So no, we're not gonna pay you fifty thou florens. He's like, well, in a thousand florins, at least that's what I originally agreed to. And they're like, how about this, We're gonna give you fifty and if you're not happy with that, then you're getting nothing. And he was still so mad that they're like, fine, nothing, get out of town, and he says, you will regret you know what that's like, that's like highering the critter remover because you have a raccoon in your attic. You agree to a price he comes over and shoots the raccoon and says game over. And you're like, wait a minute. I expected a little more, like like you were going to hypnotize him or or coax him down from the roof with your smooth jazz. Right, not just shoot it. Anybody could shoot it. I thought you're gonna like step on it or something. Yeah, like I would have shot it. Looking for a peaceful, less solution right in place, I have a bullet hole in my house. Now, have you ever had to call one of those people a raccoon remover? Well, I'll just you know those dudes, just like you know, I'll do snakes and raccoons or whatever. I haven't either, but a lot of my friends do that. I'm over one. I think I mentioned with cockroaches right now, and it's just it's getting bad still, Yeah, dude, because I don't know what to do. Hire an exterminator. Yeah, but we're not into the poison stuff. But I think it's like, we gotta do it. I think there's green exterminators that are not quite as deadly. Jerry's nodding, But will they kill all the cockroaches? Probably? You'll probably probably with their magic flute and I need to do something. It's gotten out of hand. Yeah, you got to do something like I almost I'm gonna tell you what happens, but I feel like people judge me on how disgusting it is. We can always edit it out later, all right, I'll go in and and this is not like it's not like food is out. I will clean the kitchen. I will go in there to get a glass of water. At midnight, I'll turn the light on and a dozen will scatter Jerry's gay Nope, like I will just I will hear them going, sure, yeah, that's one of the creepiest things. And they you know, as soon as they see that light, they're gone. And it sounds like we live in filth. But it doesn't matter. We're infested. They're just like, I don't know what to do. Yeah, well, um, I think you may want to call an excreminator, but find one you live into cater I'm sure you'd be hard pestifind an extreme nator that did use deadlye. You throw a rock in the cator and you'll hit a dust right, So I yes, I think it might be time. All right, Sorry about getting sidetracks, So much. They offer him, what fifty fifty not even not fifty thou or a thousand fifty? And so what does he say? He says, but he did that little everybody. You can't see me, but you know where you flick the underside of your chain, that feel like that's Italian? Well, I mean this is Germany, it's lower Saxon. It wasn't too far from Germ. No, but is that Italian? I was just wondering, Yeah, it feels like a very like Italian thing to do. Yeah, right, exactly. You gotta say it like that, all right. So he gives him that number and says, I'm going to come back. Does he even warn them and say I'm gonna come back and get your kids or I'm just gonna it depends on It's all good, you'll see me again. It depends on the story. Some say, yeah, he vowed vengeance. Some say he came back a month later, Some say he came back a year later. Some say he just immediately started playing as flu Some say, and I think the brothers grim version is that he waited until the town went to sleep and then came through the town and started playing again. All right, but this time he's wearing hunter's clothing. Did not see that anywhere? Oh? Really is that BS? Well? I don't think it's BS. I think this story has just been added to so many times over there. But yeah, I shouldn't have been to anything, all right. So he comes back regardless of what he's wearing. Let's say he's buck naked, which makes it even more fun. Well, you just added to the legend just there. He starts playing this flute again, but this time the children are entranced. He leads like a hundred and thirty kids supposedly, Yeah, pay attention to a number. It seems a little specific, doesn't it. It It does. He leads a hundred and thirty children out of town up a mountain to a cave. They supposedly enter and are never heard from again. Right, And the mountain has a landslide and covers up the cave mouth. And supposedly it was a mad e gold door that opened in the mountain that revealed the key. They go in, doors closed, landslide, gone, never heard from again, like you said, And the townspeople are like, there goes are labor pool, you know, there goes my baby, There goes are labor pool. Who's going to service at the beer gardens, and supposedly there in one version at least um there was the mayor's grown daughter was among that group, and this feels like a specific jab at the mayor, like even though your daughter's grown, I'm gonna in transfer with my flute as well. Yeah. Well, I don't think that was in the original Grim Brothers one either, but but two children survived, correct or they come back. I think in the Grim Brothers version it's just one. Sometimes it's up to three. But there there's in a lot of retellings there's a kid who either um is deaf and so can't hear the magic flute, so it's not entranced. Um has some sort of physical disability and so that he or she can't keep up with the rest of the kids and survives from that um or I think it is blind and can't see their way. Either way, some kid who had some unique characteristic that kept them from being um entranced or whatever. UH is like the eyewitness that comes back and tells the parents what happened, or in another version, is just a skeptic, a child skeptic. This can't be happening. Louis the child's skeptic um. That's funny. So all right, so let's get into this. It may not to be fictions, as it turns out, because a lot of historians and scholars have looked into this. You talked about the specificity being a little weird. One thing we do know is that at one point there was a stained glass window in the in the town church um that depicted and this was what around thirdeen hundreds is after it would have happened, but I mean sixteen years in memory, living memory. It was when they first erected that window, which kind of makes sense as a memorial. Uh. And on that window it said on the day of John Paul, I'm sorry John and Paul one thirty children in Hamlin went to Calvary, were brought through all kinds of danger to the Copen Mountain and lost. Yeah. So the Calvary thing that I thought was another word for Heaven, isn't it. I'm gone, I'm going to Calvary in that was like in that like the hill where was crucified. If I know this, surely you know I used to know this. I know it looms large and in Christianity, but I can't remember exactly. I think it's like shorthand for I'm going to meet my Maker. I saw elsewhere that they referred to the mountain as cavalry. Yeah. They also referred to the area that the children went to Calvary as the execution place. I never saw any explanation of that. And then the copp And Mountain. I don't understand why that would be also named Calvary, and they would mention at the same place twice with two different names. So it's a bit of a mystery. But the point is, about fifteen sixteen years after this event supposedly happened, or the fairy tale takes place, the town of Hamlin, Germany, in um Lower Saxony or West Falley, I think is what it's called. Now, put put up of stained glass window commemorating this. And the window did not survive. But apparently there are accounts of that window, yeah, like in more than one place. Yeah, and it was I mean you can understand that it would be because it was in the town church for hundreds of years before it was destroyed. No one knows how it was destroyed, but there is documentation that this window existed. Obviously, no living historians saw it with their own eyes. But there's enough, um documentary evidence that it seems to be. Yes, there was a window that was erected. That is a very weird thing to do. Yeah, to just make up right, yea very weird, especially in the church. Yeah, you don't lie. No, you go to hell for that. So that was that was the first documentary evidence, right. The next one I saw comes a hundred years later in four and um it's in the Hamlin Town Chronicle for that year and all it says is it is one years since our children left. Yeah. Kind of weird. And what is that? Just a blurb? I guess so you'd think a hundred year commemoration they might add a little more than that. Yeah. And what is this the Luonberg manuscript. This was about a hundred years after the window and this was a monk who wrote it, Heinrich of Hereford, and he says he writes an account and says a man about thirty years old came to town playing a flute and lead the children out. Yeah. Pretty simple. Yeah, but what's noteworthy about that one. There's a couple of things. Um, so the the piper doesn't show up in the first in the window. But he does show up in the Lumberg manuscript. He mentions the piper, but no rats in any of these right, not yet. But the other thing about the Luomburg manuscript is that it Looomberg is a nearby town. So there are other towns that are talking about this event that happened in their own chronicles. Right. One of the reasons why, But it supports the idea that it's real, because if it's just this one town that's deluded, even if other towns are talking about it, they'll probably be by the way, they're all nuts. But other towns chronicles seem to be verifying that this happened or recounting this story in like a credulous way. So something happened in twelve eighty four, and the evidence is starting to mount. Um. The other thing about the fact that this is another town is that this town Loomburg and other towns um cited that Hambling came to be known to commemorate things counting backward or forward from the date of twelve eighty four. So, for example, they put up a gate in fifteen fifty six in the town. This is what they inscribed on the gate. Chuck uh in this year of fifteen fifty six, two hundred and seventy two years after the magician led a hundred and thirty children out of the town, this portal was erected. That's like saying, like this, we're putting up the sewer two hundred and sixty two years after our children were led out of town by a magician. Enjoy the sewer. Like, that's a weird thing to inscribe in something, and apparently the town became known for that kind of thing. What just these random inscriptions about this weird, like mysterious event. Yeah, just like dating everything from twelve eighty four on bay Stan their their children leaving, and again you'll notice it mentions a hundred and thirty children. Things changed over the retelling, but the one thing that's remained the same is the hundred and thirty children leaving. Even before the piper shows up in the story, a hundred and thirty children are cited each and every time. Yeah, but in what we don't know is that, like some symbolic things, that all metaphor Um. Should we take a break and get to the theories, all right, let's do that, all right? The theories are varied, Um, One of the common ones make that makes a lot of sense is that there was some disease that killed all these kids, and then this story is some sort of metaphor for what happened to their children. And the fact that rats come into play at some point have led people to speculate that it might be the bubonic plague. Yeah, there's a guy named Count Froben Christoph von Zimmer. Can you say it like that Froban? No, I don't know, but I know that that guy will steal your soul in the middle of the night if you're not careful. Yeah, So, Count Froben Christoph von Zimmer, you can only say all of his names, you can't, he wrote. He wrote a chronicle in fifteen sixty five from another nearby town, and he was the one who seems to have introduced the rats. Okay, And so at that point the piper goes from just a weirdo magician to ratten Fonger. Yeah, rat catcher. Yeah, which was a job, it was, And I mean like like this town would have had rats. Any town would have had rats, So it would have been like it's understandable like that the rats would come into it, and it's not like that's just, you know, a totally outlandish addition to the story. But the fact that it doesn't show up until fifteen sixty five, and this has been documented for hundreds of years up to that point, seems a little fishy. And it certainly seems weird that it would have been the plague because the play cadn't come around yet, right right, And it also seems fishy that it doesn't mention anything about adults in any sort of rat carrying or diseased rat would It seems like it wouldn't just affect kids. No, it doesn't make any sense. No, it doesn't. But the idea that a hundred and thirty kids were taken from the town in one form of fashion, you could say, well, it's like some sort of disease. One of the other diseases that got um put up was Parkinson's I believe or no, Huntington's I'm Sorry, which is a stupid theory. It's a terrible theory. Unting tense disease is an inherited disease, so that would mean that every kid in the town had inherited hunting Ten's from their parents, who apparently weren't showing any symptoms. I don't know, I couldn't find it, but it's a terrible one. And then the idea that so it's not infectious, it's rare and everybody's symptoms coming on at the same time in dying. The reason why they said that those because supposedly um the sheiks from it, the palsy would account for the dancing of the children. It seems like a pretty dumb thing to zero. That's a stretch. Hunting ten disease were crossing off the list, all right. One of my favorites is that the children left on their own as part of one of the crusades. And apparently the one thing that doesn't quite align is the timeline because a few decades previous there were in fact young people children probably teenagers. Do there like eight year old participating in the Crusades. One of them would have a vision from God and say, you know, we should totally cover the Crusades. I don't think we No. Have we done that? No, not yet. There's a really good article on the site too, would be it's a pretty dense single. Yeah we might do too, alright, two party on the Crusades coming at you, Uh, so you would you know, one of those kids would have a vision from God and then all the kids would follow and say, all right, when we can take our broadswords that we can barely lift and go fight the good fight. Right. So that's one theory, and that's actually a pretty uh It's that that's a little more rooted in reality. Like, yes, there were children's crusade before documented, It's possible it happened a decade or two later, Like if if it was in the area and well known, some other kid could have been like, Okay, let me try my hand at it, changes his name to Jim Jones and says follow me to Jerusalem. Right, that's right, So that that one could have happened. It's possible. Um. The other one, this is supposed of the most widely held theory, Chuck, was that this is all part of the Oh seed long o s this is a tongue twister O S T S I E D l U n G, which is basically an exodus or an eastward expansion from Germany to Transylvania, Romania area which was being newly settled by Um Western Europeans after conquering, Like the whole Dracula era. So the idea is an adult came and said, hey, kids, why don't you come with me and we'll we'll go like populate eastern Europe pretty much right right, So um, and there is evidence that this this did, like this definitely happened, right there was a migration eastward. Um. And the big thing about this one is that they were misinterpreting the word kids or children that it could have been the town's children in but it's like their their children, they weren't kids. They were you know, young adults who were who would have represented like, you know, a lot of the workforce. So that would have been a big deal had they left. So that's a that's I think the most widely held one right now. Well, one of the traditions you're hanging onto is uh. And I kind of teased it with that dum bano jerk jerk like that's a great botto that bono joke earlier is uh today still um. The street where this supposedly all happened UM is called the Bungalowsan stausa street with no drums, street without drums, And to this day they won't allow people to play music or dance on that street. Right, the rest of the town and including that street, but really the rest of the town is the whole town is dedicated to this legend. Yeah, um, I thought you can say dedicated to music and dancing. Well, I'm except for the streets they do. There is a musical called Rats that's put on in the town seriously, um. And there's there's like a pie piper statue and recreations every Sunday in the summer. Oh yeah, it's huge tourist town for this. Um. There's like a I think a Rats blug cocktails that they served. I saw. It's like a mental Falss article I mentioned that. But um, the town is dedicated to this. But there's there's the fact that they're still talking about it is not just legend. It's um. It's like they're they're still telling that story to an extent, you know what I mean. Well, yeah, keeping it alive, not just for tourist dollars because it looms large because this is their ancestry. Well, they definitely. Um, there are some more um theories that haven't gained as much traction, Like there was a pedophile that came, Um, these children were just maybe just simply sent away because they're very poor. Because that happened. That's my theory that that was just sort of the regular thing that would happen, is we're also poor, you go away and live a better life somewhere. Yeah, And that's where Hansel and Gretel is kind of rooted in reality, the idea of child abandonment. Remember we talked about that. I believe in the in one of the fairy Tale episodes from before that like if you fell on hard times, just taking your kid out to the woods and being like, best of luck. It was a viable thing to do during the Middle Ages. And it's possible that this town basically said it would be like a combination of the guy coming from Romania and saying follow me, and the parents being like, maybe you should go with him. And then that would explain why the whole thing is written in like such vague, flowery language. To me, that indicates that they're they're working out guilt. There's guilt by this town, bague. They're not direct. Other towns are talking about this legend in much more explicit terms, But in the town of hay Amelin it's all very like like flowery and and poetic and vague, and it makes me think they're they're covering something up that they have to get off their chest. But they're still they can't bring themselves to actually say what it was. Well, that sort of jibes the with um. This dude, he's a children's poet named Michael Rosen. He sent that one article. He actually went to Hamlin and hooked up with a guy named Michael Boyer from the tourism office there, and Boyer says that he thinks the rats were added and this this makes sense with your theory. Was that just sort of an attempt to wash away what he said, we're bad memories, like a cover up to draw attention away from this awful thing. They're like, hey, let's tell this rat story. Right, But if you'll notice also in that story with the rats there there is guilt by the town. The town is guilty of something and they lose their children as a result. Right, So if the rats were actually part of the original story, even if it wasn't documented, even if there weren't real rats, it still is putting some veneer of guilt onto the town. It wasn't something that just happened to them. This thing befell them because they did something wrong. I don't feel like there could be a deeper mystery, though, Yeah I think there is, Like, for real, I think there's something really happened in Hamlin in twelve eighty four and they lost a hundred and thirty kids somehow, and the town it was psychically damaged by it. Are you going to title this one pie Piper colon cold Case? That's a good one. Actually, Okay, you got anything else? No? Now I want to know more. I know I got sucked into this. I can't remember which of the articles I sent it got me, but I don't remember how I came across it, but it was it was like, oh, I've never thought of this, And it's not like you can do this with every um fairy tale, right there's you know, there's was probably no rapondola, and probably no rumble Stiltskin, Hansel and Gretel's just so vague. Probably happened to multiple children, But this one, this happened in Hamlin in twelve eighty four. Something happened. We may never know what it was, but it's pretty interesting. My mind goes really dark and thinks, like what if there was just a mass murder, well parents. One more thing, One more thing. I'm glad you brought that up. So the execution place that the Coppin Mountain or Cavalry Mountain or whatever it was, supposedly that was where they buried people too, So they were saying that could be code for a mass grave where they would have buried people, which would suggest a mass death that happened in a short period of time. Man, can you imagine if there was a discovery made of children's bones and in a mountain somewhere north of Hamlin to be neat nor because it's mountains, I just think that means they're north. So one more you keep bringing up this awesome stuff, dude. You ready, they recently discovered I think they discovered it a while back, but they recently publicized that the discovery of a and believe it was. It was definitely in Peru. It wasn't Incan. It was one of the Incan's rivals, the Inca rivals um. But it was a mass sacrifice of hundreds of kids that all happened on one day, one after the other. It was. And like they found this and you're reading it and you're like, this probably has never happened in the history of the world anything like this, Nothing like this. I mean it's they were probably child side or they're definitely child sacrifices, but they would do it like once in a while or something. But imagine a town gone that berserk that they just let their kids, like hundreds of kids just killed in a day in one area. It was. It's really rough, man, it's but reading about it, it's I mean, it's just too you can't help but pull yourself back into that day and just see it and want to be like, stop, what are you doing? You've lost your mind? You know. And if it happened once, it could happen again. I guess you know, maybe the parents were all, uh, maybe they'll drank bad beer one day it made him temporarily insane. That would be really bad. It sounds like a Bloomhouse movie to come. What is that? It's just that production company that makes a lot of the horror movies. Now, what like what I think they did get out among many others. Good, Okay, you've got anything else? Now? I got nothing else? Jerry? No, okay, Well, if you want to know more about the pipe Piper and all that stuff, you can type that word in the search bar how stuff works dot Com. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail, I'm gonna call this a double Kieta reply because you heard from a couple of people with some good insight. First, Alexandra, longtime listener from San Juan, Puerto Rico, loved episode on Kensanetas's usually you did a great job approaching a cultural tradition, but it is not your own, while providing a balanced information, well rounded and textualization of the celebration and its influences. And she's like in Parnes, it was the opposite of the ing episode. Oh man, we've gotten beat up about that. For my own Keen Saneta, my mother gave me the option of the traditional coming of age party or a trip. What do you think she chose. I'm guessing a trip. Yeah, I would too. I chose to travel. It. Spent a month in Germany this summer I turned fifteen. Looking back, it's amazing that she trusted me enough at such a young age travel on my own, although I did stay with family. She's like, it's the greatest regret of my young life. I wish I would have partied. Uh, I just wanted to clarify a few things you brought up. Um, l A T I n X is pronounced, she says, latin X. It refers to those from Latin America or Latin American descent. Hispanic refers to Spanish speaking persons. Oh and your pronunciation of keen yeta was great, as the r A is a soft our sound. Um, no need to read this on the podcast. T s sorry, Alexandra. And then this other follow up I want to this guy says, this is Ti van Plinski. I recognize that name. I think he's on Twitter or something. Really Yeah, great name. He's local, is she said? Disclaimer, I'm a white person from Georgia, so I have no authority here at all. But we'll be referring to the opinions of actual Latino Latina Latin X people I know or have read the writings of. I've personally only heard that word pronounced with confidence in the following two ways, Latin X and Latin X. However, some people say latin X or latins latin X sounds right because it's Latino Latina latin X, Yeah, that makes sense, or LATINX rhymes with sphinx. Um I don't think that's right or something else entirely, as evidenced by this Twitter poll, and he shared a Twitter poll which was from a media brand for Latino millennials. Interestingly, there appears to be backlash against the term by some who view it as an attempt, potential or not to anglicize Spanish. They say this is part of a larger movement to paint Hispanic Latino Latina Latin X people as sexist and ignorant. Mexican American person who introduced me to the term was still sorting out their feelings about the whole situation. Huh. So that's where we step steps into a hornet's nice uh tivon plinsky Uh. If you want to get in touch with us, like Tie and Alexandra did, you can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast and Chuck's at movie Crush. You can join Chuck on Facebook at Facebook dot com, slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and slash Stuff you Should Know. You can send us all an email. The Stuff podcast at how Stuff Works dot com and has always joined us their home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot Com Radio. Stuff you Should Know is a production of i heart Radio. For more podcasts My heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H

Hey, everybody, it's your buddy Josh. And for this week's select, I've chosen our May two thousand and eighteen episode on the Pied Piper, one of those rare fairy tales that actually may be rooted in fact and history, and it's a good one. It's got a weird start for some reason. I almost sound like I'm mad at Chuck, but rest assured I wasn't. We finally catch our feet a few minutes into it, and then the episode really takes off. So I hope it takes you on a wild thrill ride like it did me listening to it again. And either way, just sit back and enjoy, as I know you will. Our episode on the Pied Piper. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles w. Hu Bryant, and there's Jerry over there. This is stuff if you should know, fairy Tale edition. Jerry is supposedly on vacation. Yeah, what's going on? But she came in here just for us. Why Jerry? I think she feels beholden. That's nice, which is weird because she's we've had guest producers. I don't know. Maybe she feels like her job is threatened. Is today the day I die? Oh? Jeesus, hope Jerry knows it. Can't we at least get these two in the can first? Yeah? Well probably unless something really crazy happens in the next hour and two. Yeah, that'll give me time to get in touch with like the five people I have on my list to replace you. Ye, I know the five Bono right Obama? Right, Michael Stipe, Michael Stipe, Bobby Fisher. I think there was one more. I can't remember, Bobby Fisher, the chess player. Yeah, that's a little random. Well I want to correct that episode and Optimus Prime that's the fifth one, that's right. Yeah, uh, chucker. Have you ever heard of fairy Tale before? Yeah? We uh, we did two very good episodes. Oh, if you say so yourself, know these were good. I don't often say that, but in November of two thousand and fifteen, we did it back to backer with the dark origins of fairy tales and how the Grimm's fairy Tales work or the grand Brothers. We had fairy tale fever, we did, but man, we licked it. So did you go back and listen to him and you're like, wow, these are good or you just remember them being good. I remember them being good, okay, and being especially kind of proud of those too. Really that's fantastic. Yeah, that's how I feel about your limb is torn off? Now what that was a good one. It's a good title about reattachment surgery. Remember that. Yeah? I think that that titles all you. That's a Josh Clark title. You've got some good titles out there too. What's the deal with blank? You know who's really good at coming up with titles? Yeah? Where the streets have no name? Right? Where the where the streets have no drums? For a dam dude, you just did it. So we're talking about fairy tales today, specifically, specifically, we're talking about the fairy tale of the Pie Piper of Hamlet, and as far as fairy tales go, it seems to be a little different than other fairy tales. And the reason why it's a little different is because, horrifically, it's people think scholars, not just you know, average truck right, like, real deal scholars think that something actually happened that formed the basis of this fairy tale. Right, Whereas with Hansel and Gretel it wasn't based on some witchy lady who ate children. No, but that one might have had some basis in fact too. How about like rumpel Stiltskin. Probably not based in fact? Right? You remember the little guy who like you trick him into saying his own name, A little guy with a big heart. I don't think he had a big heart. He had an insatiable sexual appetite, is what it was. Oh, the little girl with the big heart was Bono? Right man, We're gonna get so many emails from people being like, layoff Bono. What's what's with the bono references? Who's Bono? They must work with that Bono guy? I wish so, chuck Um the pie Piper. The reason why we say it might be based in fact is because there's actual, like historic evidence that kind of supports this thing. And you can find it in this town of Hamlin, which is a real place. It's not a made up like fairy tale land like you know, ods your first clue. Yeah, most fairy tales are not set in an actual place, right. I don't know, are they know they're just made up? Or they're in a very vague place, or they take place in a larger place, like, oh, in Germany one day, or in Bavaria one day, not like in this town, right, that actually existed at the time we're saying it did. Which is another thing too, because if you look at the actual fairy tales, you'll get to in a second, there's like a specific date. Yeah, that also is very unusual. For so the more you dig into it, the more you're like, yeah, this might have actually happened. And then what you think, oh, this might have actually happened, then you're struck with some of the greatest dread human being can experience, because there's something bad happened, is what happened? Let's talk about it, all right? Well, let's get into the original fairy tale, the Grimm's Brothers Tale of the Pipe Piper. It was not even Irish and German. Um Jane McGrath, good old Jane from back in the day, wrote this one, and she points out that it is a tale, a cautionary tale about governance as well as taking responsibility for financial agreements. She's right, but it put in that way, it seems a little funny, Yeah, but it is twelve eighty four in Hamlin in Germany, and there was a rat infestation in the town at the time, and the mayor and this is the fairy tale you're going over right, yeah, yeah, And so that the mayor of the town didn't know what to do. The Burger meister, Oh yeah, maister Burger, the stranger comes into town and war and I didn't know what pid even meant. I didn't either. What is it? Multi colored? Yeah, he wore multi colored clothes, pied multi colored clothes. That's all he was. He was a piper who were colorful clothing. Had nothing to do with eating pies or I thought walking on his feet, you know, you thought that's what it meant. Yeah, why because I think, like a like pedestrian comes from pied p Well, but I think it's like maybe Italian or something that certainly makes more sense than me having no clue. Yeah, but I was way off, so it doesn't matter. He did walk. That was the other reason I thought that too. So his outfit looked a little weird. Apparently multicolored people didn't dress like that, I reckon. I saw though that it was also like, um, like a splendid outfit that he gets attracted a lot of attention, and people were like, I wish I could, I wish I had the cohones, dressed like you. Pie. Piper dance around with a band. Uh and he had a called it a musical pipe or some kind of flute, not a smoking pipe. Heads no uh. And he hears about this rat problem. He comes into town. He drags his fingernails along the chalkboard and gets everyone attention. And the down meeting says, I'll kill that shark. Oh, you gotta do it, but no, no, no, I'll kill the rats. Yeah, but in the voice I can't do quint well whatever, you can do anything. You're like the rich little of this this company. Jerry's laughing at us for no reason. She so sick of this man. She's really tickled today, Jerry, are you stoned? No, she's been smoking her own magical pipe. So they agree on a price to get rid of the rats. Piper takes out his his little his little hand flute. Yeah, yeah, I don't know if that's what it's called. But the price is important. Can I go into the price for a second. So he initially said that he would get rid of the rats for a thousand florins, which is either coins or money from Italy or France or the Netherlands, but money a thousand a lot of the time, thousand pieces of money. And this this town of Hamlin was so overrun by rats. Apparently all their cats had died. Though yes they got they beat the cats, said, I didn't see explained what happened to the cats, just that the cats died, and that's why the town was overrun, okay, which is a weird little thing, don't you think? Yeah, because my first thing was like, why a pie piper just get some cats? The cats had all died? All right, good thinking, chuck um. But they say a thousand florins, will give you fifty thousand florins if you get rid of these rats. Our problem is so bad, and he says done. But was that a facetious offer? I think it was a desperate a desperate boast. Okay. But the pipe piper I was like, all right, I'll agree to your terms. I just wanted a thousand, but fifty thousand it is. And they went, I think we ever spent I regret saying that you should hear the guy so he pulls out the instrument. He um starts playing. As the story goes, all the rats congregate around him, and he leaps about and dances through town into the Weser River, which the rats drowned, which is complete um fabrication, because rats are very good swimmers. They really are. I thought about that too. I even looked it up. They're good swimmers. Not just rats you've seen it's rats in general. Yeah. I mean the first thing, honestly, when I heard that, the first thing that made me think that was like, wait a minute, first blood, he's in that a band in mind chat, Those rats are swimming all over the place. Yeah, So I looked it up. I was like, is that true? And apparently rats are really good swimmers, better than others too. So this fairy tale stinks of BS already. Okay, but the story goes that the rats followed this guy in a trance to the river, whereupon they drowned. Maybe they were in the trance and that was why they couldn't swim, because they were just so lulled by his his hand flute, his smooth jazz. Should you take a break there and finish the story after? Oh it's quite a cliff banger, all right, let's do that. Alright, Chuck, We're back to lay it on them. Man. That was that was high class. Well, they drown all the rats. The pie piper is successful. Everyone parties German style, which is to say they probably got hammered on eight eight ounce beers. Have you ever been to Germany? You ever had the beers there? The big Yeah? I mean they've got big old beers there for sure. And they have lids on their their mugs too, because you know, there's so much of it you can just set it down, save it for later. But I don't think they save it for later. The beer gardener went two did not have the lids. Maybe I've just seen in those on TV. But what they did have was a four and a half foot tall woman with popeye sized foe arms carrying six of those giant like like a pro, not like a bro. They were pros. Well two, it's probably sold to the beer garden at a young age and was raised to that. Please, that's not the case, um, all right, So where are we townspeople are partying? They're they're getting hammered, They're singing, They're they're they're prosting, singing their German beer hall. Uh songs as they are want to do and then dude says, uh, what's up with that? All those florins? Yeah, he's like, everybody, I'm really glad that you enjoyed my work, but now it's time for me to go pay me. And did they just stiff them or did they say, well, let's go back to the thousand. Uh? They said, we're not giving you fifty thou florins. What you We thought you were going to get rid of these rests through hard work. You just played some flute, Like that's cool that you can do that with the flute, but that's not really work. So no, we're not gonna pay you fifty thou florens. He's like, well, in a thousand florins, at least that's what I originally agreed to. And they're like, how about this, We're gonna give you fifty and if you're not happy with that, then you're getting nothing. And he was still so mad that they're like, fine, nothing, get out of town, and he says, you will regret you know what that's like, that's like highering the critter remover because you have a raccoon in your attic. You agree to a price he comes over and shoots the raccoon and says game over. And you're like, wait a minute. I expected a little more, like like you were going to hypnotize him or or coax him down from the roof with your smooth jazz. Right, not just shoot it. Anybody could shoot it. I thought you're gonna like step on it or something. Yeah, like I would have shot it. Looking for a peaceful, less solution right in place, I have a bullet hole in my house. Now, have you ever had to call one of those people a raccoon remover? Well, I'll just you know those dudes, just like you know, I'll do snakes and raccoons or whatever. I haven't either, but a lot of my friends do that. I'm over one. I think I mentioned with cockroaches right now, and it's just it's getting bad still, Yeah, dude, because I don't know what to do. Hire an exterminator. Yeah, but we're not into the poison stuff. But I think it's like, we gotta do it. I think there's green exterminators that are not quite as deadly. Jerry's nodding, But will they kill all the cockroaches? Probably? You'll probably probably with their magic flute and I need to do something. It's gotten out of hand. Yeah, you got to do something like I almost I'm gonna tell you what happens, but I feel like people judge me on how disgusting it is. We can always edit it out later, all right, I'll go in and and this is not like it's not like food is out. I will clean the kitchen. I will go in there to get a glass of water. At midnight, I'll turn the light on and a dozen will scatter Jerry's gay Nope, like I will just I will hear them going, sure, yeah, that's one of the creepiest things. And they you know, as soon as they see that light, they're gone. And it sounds like we live in filth. But it doesn't matter. We're infested. They're just like, I don't know what to do. Yeah, well, um, I think you may want to call an excreminator, but find one you live into cater I'm sure you'd be hard pestifind an extreme nator that did use deadlye. You throw a rock in the cator and you'll hit a dust right, So I yes, I think it might be time. All right, Sorry about getting sidetracks, So much. They offer him, what fifty fifty not even not fifty thou or a thousand fifty? And so what does he say? He says, but he did that little everybody. You can't see me, but you know where you flick the underside of your chain, that feel like that's Italian? Well, I mean this is Germany, it's lower Saxon. It wasn't too far from Germ. No, but is that Italian? I was just wondering, Yeah, it feels like a very like Italian thing to do. Yeah, right, exactly. You gotta say it like that, all right. So he gives him that number and says, I'm going to come back. Does he even warn them and say I'm gonna come back and get your kids or I'm just gonna it depends on It's all good, you'll see me again. It depends on the story. Some say, yeah, he vowed vengeance. Some say he came back a month later, Some say he came back a year later. Some say he just immediately started playing as flu Some say, and I think the brothers grim version is that he waited until the town went to sleep and then came through the town and started playing again. All right, but this time he's wearing hunter's clothing. Did not see that anywhere? Oh? Really is that BS? Well? I don't think it's BS. I think this story has just been added to so many times over there. But yeah, I shouldn't have been to anything, all right. So he comes back regardless of what he's wearing. Let's say he's buck naked, which makes it even more fun. Well, you just added to the legend just there. He starts playing this flute again, but this time the children are entranced. He leads like a hundred and thirty kids supposedly, Yeah, pay attention to a number. It seems a little specific, doesn't it. It It does. He leads a hundred and thirty children out of town up a mountain to a cave. They supposedly enter and are never heard from again. Right, And the mountain has a landslide and covers up the cave mouth. And supposedly it was a mad e gold door that opened in the mountain that revealed the key. They go in, doors closed, landslide, gone, never heard from again, like you said, And the townspeople are like, there goes are labor pool, you know, there goes my baby, There goes are labor pool. Who's going to service at the beer gardens, and supposedly there in one version at least um there was the mayor's grown daughter was among that group, and this feels like a specific jab at the mayor, like even though your daughter's grown, I'm gonna in transfer with my flute as well. Yeah. Well, I don't think that was in the original Grim Brothers one either, but but two children survived, correct or they come back. I think in the Grim Brothers version it's just one. Sometimes it's up to three. But there there's in a lot of retellings there's a kid who either um is deaf and so can't hear the magic flute, so it's not entranced. Um has some sort of physical disability and so that he or she can't keep up with the rest of the kids and survives from that um or I think it is blind and can't see their way. Either way, some kid who had some unique characteristic that kept them from being um entranced or whatever. UH is like the eyewitness that comes back and tells the parents what happened, or in another version, is just a skeptic, a child skeptic. This can't be happening. Louis the child's skeptic um. That's funny. So all right, so let's get into this. It may not to be fictions, as it turns out, because a lot of historians and scholars have looked into this. You talked about the specificity being a little weird. One thing we do know is that at one point there was a stained glass window in the in the town church um that depicted and this was what around thirdeen hundreds is after it would have happened, but I mean sixteen years in memory, living memory. It was when they first erected that window, which kind of makes sense as a memorial. Uh. And on that window it said on the day of John Paul, I'm sorry John and Paul one thirty children in Hamlin went to Calvary, were brought through all kinds of danger to the Copen Mountain and lost. Yeah. So the Calvary thing that I thought was another word for Heaven, isn't it. I'm gone, I'm going to Calvary in that was like in that like the hill where was crucified. If I know this, surely you know I used to know this. I know it looms large and in Christianity, but I can't remember exactly. I think it's like shorthand for I'm going to meet my Maker. I saw elsewhere that they referred to the mountain as cavalry. Yeah. They also referred to the area that the children went to Calvary as the execution place. I never saw any explanation of that. And then the copp And Mountain. I don't understand why that would be also named Calvary, and they would mention at the same place twice with two different names. So it's a bit of a mystery. But the point is, about fifteen sixteen years after this event supposedly happened, or the fairy tale takes place, the town of Hamlin, Germany, in um Lower Saxony or West Falley, I think is what it's called. Now, put put up of stained glass window commemorating this. And the window did not survive. But apparently there are accounts of that window, yeah, like in more than one place. Yeah, and it was I mean you can understand that it would be because it was in the town church for hundreds of years before it was destroyed. No one knows how it was destroyed, but there is documentation that this window existed. Obviously, no living historians saw it with their own eyes. But there's enough, um documentary evidence that it seems to be. Yes, there was a window that was erected. That is a very weird thing to do. Yeah, to just make up right, yea very weird, especially in the church. Yeah, you don't lie. No, you go to hell for that. So that was that was the first documentary evidence, right. The next one I saw comes a hundred years later in four and um it's in the Hamlin Town Chronicle for that year and all it says is it is one years since our children left. Yeah. Kind of weird. And what is that? Just a blurb? I guess so you'd think a hundred year commemoration they might add a little more than that. Yeah. And what is this the Luonberg manuscript. This was about a hundred years after the window and this was a monk who wrote it, Heinrich of Hereford, and he says he writes an account and says a man about thirty years old came to town playing a flute and lead the children out. Yeah. Pretty simple. Yeah, but what's noteworthy about that one. There's a couple of things. Um, so the the piper doesn't show up in the first in the window. But he does show up in the Lumberg manuscript. He mentions the piper, but no rats in any of these right, not yet. But the other thing about the Luomburg manuscript is that it Looomberg is a nearby town. So there are other towns that are talking about this event that happened in their own chronicles. Right. One of the reasons why, But it supports the idea that it's real, because if it's just this one town that's deluded, even if other towns are talking about it, they'll probably be by the way, they're all nuts. But other towns chronicles seem to be verifying that this happened or recounting this story in like a credulous way. So something happened in twelve eighty four, and the evidence is starting to mount. Um. The other thing about the fact that this is another town is that this town Loomburg and other towns um cited that Hambling came to be known to commemorate things counting backward or forward from the date of twelve eighty four. So, for example, they put up a gate in fifteen fifty six in the town. This is what they inscribed on the gate. Chuck uh in this year of fifteen fifty six, two hundred and seventy two years after the magician led a hundred and thirty children out of the town, this portal was erected. That's like saying, like this, we're putting up the sewer two hundred and sixty two years after our children were led out of town by a magician. Enjoy the sewer. Like, that's a weird thing to inscribe in something, and apparently the town became known for that kind of thing. What just these random inscriptions about this weird, like mysterious event. Yeah, just like dating everything from twelve eighty four on bay Stan their their children leaving, and again you'll notice it mentions a hundred and thirty children. Things changed over the retelling, but the one thing that's remained the same is the hundred and thirty children leaving. Even before the piper shows up in the story, a hundred and thirty children are cited each and every time. Yeah, but in what we don't know is that, like some symbolic things, that all metaphor Um. Should we take a break and get to the theories, all right, let's do that, all right? The theories are varied, Um, One of the common ones make that makes a lot of sense is that there was some disease that killed all these kids, and then this story is some sort of metaphor for what happened to their children. And the fact that rats come into play at some point have led people to speculate that it might be the bubonic plague. Yeah, there's a guy named Count Froben Christoph von Zimmer. Can you say it like that Froban? No, I don't know, but I know that that guy will steal your soul in the middle of the night if you're not careful. Yeah, So, Count Froben Christoph von Zimmer, you can only say all of his names, you can't, he wrote. He wrote a chronicle in fifteen sixty five from another nearby town, and he was the one who seems to have introduced the rats. Okay, And so at that point the piper goes from just a weirdo magician to ratten Fonger. Yeah, rat catcher. Yeah, which was a job, it was, And I mean like like this town would have had rats. Any town would have had rats, So it would have been like it's understandable like that the rats would come into it, and it's not like that's just, you know, a totally outlandish addition to the story. But the fact that it doesn't show up until fifteen sixty five, and this has been documented for hundreds of years up to that point, seems a little fishy. And it certainly seems weird that it would have been the plague because the play cadn't come around yet, right right, And it also seems fishy that it doesn't mention anything about adults in any sort of rat carrying or diseased rat would It seems like it wouldn't just affect kids. No, it doesn't make any sense. No, it doesn't. But the idea that a hundred and thirty kids were taken from the town in one form of fashion, you could say, well, it's like some sort of disease. One of the other diseases that got um put up was Parkinson's I believe or no, Huntington's I'm Sorry, which is a stupid theory. It's a terrible theory. Unting tense disease is an inherited disease, so that would mean that every kid in the town had inherited hunting Ten's from their parents, who apparently weren't showing any symptoms. I don't know, I couldn't find it, but it's a terrible one. And then the idea that so it's not infectious, it's rare and everybody's symptoms coming on at the same time in dying. The reason why they said that those because supposedly um the sheiks from it, the palsy would account for the dancing of the children. It seems like a pretty dumb thing to zero. That's a stretch. Hunting ten disease were crossing off the list, all right. One of my favorites is that the children left on their own as part of one of the crusades. And apparently the one thing that doesn't quite align is the timeline because a few decades previous there were in fact young people children probably teenagers. Do there like eight year old participating in the Crusades. One of them would have a vision from God and say, you know, we should totally cover the Crusades. I don't think we No. Have we done that? No, not yet. There's a really good article on the site too, would be it's a pretty dense single. Yeah we might do too, alright, two party on the Crusades coming at you, Uh, so you would you know, one of those kids would have a vision from God and then all the kids would follow and say, all right, when we can take our broadswords that we can barely lift and go fight the good fight. Right. So that's one theory, and that's actually a pretty uh It's that that's a little more rooted in reality. Like, yes, there were children's crusade before documented, It's possible it happened a decade or two later, Like if if it was in the area and well known, some other kid could have been like, Okay, let me try my hand at it, changes his name to Jim Jones and says follow me to Jerusalem. Right, that's right, So that that one could have happened. It's possible. Um. The other one, this is supposed of the most widely held theory, Chuck, was that this is all part of the Oh seed long o s this is a tongue twister O S T S I E D l U n G, which is basically an exodus or an eastward expansion from Germany to Transylvania, Romania area which was being newly settled by Um Western Europeans after conquering, Like the whole Dracula era. So the idea is an adult came and said, hey, kids, why don't you come with me and we'll we'll go like populate eastern Europe pretty much right right, So um, and there is evidence that this this did, like this definitely happened, right there was a migration eastward. Um. And the big thing about this one is that they were misinterpreting the word kids or children that it could have been the town's children in but it's like their their children, they weren't kids. They were you know, young adults who were who would have represented like, you know, a lot of the workforce. So that would have been a big deal had they left. So that's a that's I think the most widely held one right now. Well, one of the traditions you're hanging onto is uh. And I kind of teased it with that dum bano jerk jerk like that's a great botto that bono joke earlier is uh today still um. The street where this supposedly all happened UM is called the Bungalowsan stausa street with no drums, street without drums, And to this day they won't allow people to play music or dance on that street. Right, the rest of the town and including that street, but really the rest of the town is the whole town is dedicated to this legend. Yeah, um, I thought you can say dedicated to music and dancing. Well, I'm except for the streets they do. There is a musical called Rats that's put on in the town seriously, um. And there's there's like a pie piper statue and recreations every Sunday in the summer. Oh yeah, it's huge tourist town for this. Um. There's like a I think a Rats blug cocktails that they served. I saw. It's like a mental Falss article I mentioned that. But um, the town is dedicated to this. But there's there's the fact that they're still talking about it is not just legend. It's um. It's like they're they're still telling that story to an extent, you know what I mean. Well, yeah, keeping it alive, not just for tourist dollars because it looms large because this is their ancestry. Well, they definitely. Um, there are some more um theories that haven't gained as much traction, Like there was a pedophile that came, Um, these children were just maybe just simply sent away because they're very poor. Because that happened. That's my theory that that was just sort of the regular thing that would happen, is we're also poor, you go away and live a better life somewhere. Yeah, And that's where Hansel and Gretel is kind of rooted in reality, the idea of child abandonment. Remember we talked about that. I believe in the in one of the fairy Tale episodes from before that like if you fell on hard times, just taking your kid out to the woods and being like, best of luck. It was a viable thing to do during the Middle Ages. And it's possible that this town basically said it would be like a combination of the guy coming from Romania and saying follow me, and the parents being like, maybe you should go with him. And then that would explain why the whole thing is written in like such vague, flowery language. To me, that indicates that they're they're working out guilt. There's guilt by this town, bague. They're not direct. Other towns are talking about this legend in much more explicit terms, But in the town of hay Amelin it's all very like like flowery and and poetic and vague, and it makes me think they're they're covering something up that they have to get off their chest. But they're still they can't bring themselves to actually say what it was. Well, that sort of jibes the with um. This dude, he's a children's poet named Michael Rosen. He sent that one article. He actually went to Hamlin and hooked up with a guy named Michael Boyer from the tourism office there, and Boyer says that he thinks the rats were added and this this makes sense with your theory. Was that just sort of an attempt to wash away what he said, we're bad memories, like a cover up to draw attention away from this awful thing. They're like, hey, let's tell this rat story. Right, But if you'll notice also in that story with the rats there there is guilt by the town. The town is guilty of something and they lose their children as a result. Right, So if the rats were actually part of the original story, even if it wasn't documented, even if there weren't real rats, it still is putting some veneer of guilt onto the town. It wasn't something that just happened to them. This thing befell them because they did something wrong. I don't feel like there could be a deeper mystery, though, Yeah I think there is, Like, for real, I think there's something really happened in Hamlin in twelve eighty four and they lost a hundred and thirty kids somehow, and the town it was psychically damaged by it. Are you going to title this one pie Piper colon cold Case? That's a good one. Actually, Okay, you got anything else? No? Now I want to know more. I know I got sucked into this. I can't remember which of the articles I sent it got me, but I don't remember how I came across it, but it was it was like, oh, I've never thought of this, And it's not like you can do this with every um fairy tale, right there's you know, there's was probably no rapondola, and probably no rumble Stiltskin, Hansel and Gretel's just so vague. Probably happened to multiple children, But this one, this happened in Hamlin in twelve eighty four. Something happened. We may never know what it was, but it's pretty interesting. My mind goes really dark and thinks, like what if there was just a mass murder, well parents. One more thing, One more thing. I'm glad you brought that up. So the execution place that the Coppin Mountain or Cavalry Mountain or whatever it was, supposedly that was where they buried people too, So they were saying that could be code for a mass grave where they would have buried people, which would suggest a mass death that happened in a short period of time. Man, can you imagine if there was a discovery made of children's bones and in a mountain somewhere north of Hamlin to be neat nor because it's mountains, I just think that means they're north. So one more you keep bringing up this awesome stuff, dude. You ready, they recently discovered I think they discovered it a while back, but they recently publicized that the discovery of a and believe it was. It was definitely in Peru. It wasn't Incan. It was one of the Incan's rivals, the Inca rivals um. But it was a mass sacrifice of hundreds of kids that all happened on one day, one after the other. It was. And like they found this and you're reading it and you're like, this probably has never happened in the history of the world anything like this, Nothing like this. I mean it's they were probably child side or they're definitely child sacrifices, but they would do it like once in a while or something. But imagine a town gone that berserk that they just let their kids, like hundreds of kids just killed in a day in one area. It was. It's really rough, man, it's but reading about it, it's I mean, it's just too you can't help but pull yourself back into that day and just see it and want to be like, stop, what are you doing? You've lost your mind? You know. And if it happened once, it could happen again. I guess you know, maybe the parents were all, uh, maybe they'll drank bad beer one day it made him temporarily insane. That would be really bad. It sounds like a Bloomhouse movie to come. What is that? It's just that production company that makes a lot of the horror movies. Now, what like what I think they did get out among many others. Good, Okay, you've got anything else? Now? I got nothing else? Jerry? No, okay, Well, if you want to know more about the pipe Piper and all that stuff, you can type that word in the search bar how stuff works dot Com. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail, I'm gonna call this a double Kieta reply because you heard from a couple of people with some good insight. First, Alexandra, longtime listener from San Juan, Puerto Rico, loved episode on Kensanetas's usually you did a great job approaching a cultural tradition, but it is not your own, while providing a balanced information, well rounded and textualization of the celebration and its influences. And she's like in Parnes, it was the opposite of the ing episode. Oh man, we've gotten beat up about that. For my own Keen Saneta, my mother gave me the option of the traditional coming of age party or a trip. What do you think she chose. I'm guessing a trip. Yeah, I would too. I chose to travel. It. Spent a month in Germany this summer I turned fifteen. Looking back, it's amazing that she trusted me enough at such a young age travel on my own, although I did stay with family. She's like, it's the greatest regret of my young life. I wish I would have partied. Uh, I just wanted to clarify a few things you brought up. Um, l A T I n X is pronounced, she says, latin X. It refers to those from Latin America or Latin American descent. Hispanic refers to Spanish speaking persons. Oh and your pronunciation of keen yeta was great, as the r A is a soft our sound. Um, no need to read this on the podcast. T s sorry, Alexandra. And then this other follow up I want to this guy says, this is Ti van Plinski. I recognize that name. I think he's on Twitter or something. Really Yeah, great name. He's local, is she said? Disclaimer, I'm a white person from Georgia, so I have no authority here at all. But we'll be referring to the opinions of actual Latino Latina Latin X people I know or have read the writings of. I've personally only heard that word pronounced with confidence in the following two ways, Latin X and Latin X. However, some people say latin X or latins latin X sounds right because it's Latino Latina latin X, Yeah, that makes sense, or LATINX rhymes with sphinx. Um I don't think that's right or something else entirely, as evidenced by this Twitter poll, and he shared a Twitter poll which was from a media brand for Latino millennials. Interestingly, there appears to be backlash against the term by some who view it as an attempt, potential or not to anglicize Spanish. They say this is part of a larger movement to paint Hispanic Latino Latina Latin X people as sexist and ignorant. Mexican American person who introduced me to the term was still sorting out their feelings about the whole situation. Huh. So that's where we step steps into a hornet's nice uh tivon plinsky Uh. If you want to get in touch with us, like Tie and Alexandra did, you can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast and Chuck's at movie Crush. You can join Chuck on Facebook at Facebook dot com, slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and slash Stuff you Should Know. You can send us all an email. The Stuff podcast at how Stuff Works dot com and has always joined us their home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot Com Radio. Stuff you Should Know is a production of i heart Radio. For more podcasts My heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H