STRIKES! And this is all BEFORE we get started. KrOB comes in and we chew the fat (down to the gristle) on any number of topics. Der Rattenfänger von Hameln, also known as the Pan Piper or the Rat-Catcher of Hamelin, is the title character of a legend from the town of Hamelin, in Lower Saxony, Germany. This story comes from the Middle Ages, July 22nd, 1376. It is the earliest references describing a piper, dressed in multicolored ("pied") clothing, a rat-catcher hired by the town to lure vermin away to their doom with his magically compelling pipe. When the Mayor and the Town Corporation refused to pay for this service as promised, however, the strange Piper retaliated by using his instrument next on their children, leading them away, as he had the rats. This version of the story spread as folklore, and has appeared in the writings of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the Brothers Grimm, and notably Robert Browning. The phrase "pied piper" has become a metaphor for a person who attracts a following through charisma or false promises. The behavior of the town officials, though, seems to echo the current treachery of the contemporary Republican Party in the United States in year 2022. As for the strange story, there are many contradictory theories about the Pied Piper. Some suggest he was a symbol of hope to the people of Hamelin, which had been attacked by plague; he drove the rats away, saving the people from the epidemic, caused by the fleas of the rodents who passed the Bubonic Plague. In San Francisco one might view the 1909 Maxfield Parrish mural, "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" at the Palace Hotel. Good luck trying to see it.

The earliest known record of the story is depicted in a stained-glass window created for the church of Hamelin, around 1300. Although this church was destroyed in 1660, written accounts of the tale survived. Browning's poem suggests that the ensorcelled children eventually climbed out of a subterranean region in Transylvania, where their descendants still live. When I was a little shaver I read a story, I think in the Saturday Evening Post, called The Martian Cathedral. In it, space explorers find a medieval cathedral on the Red Planet constructed by the now-gone Hamelin children. The rat figured prominently in the cathedral's elaborate carvings. Don't miss my next show online on Zoom and Twitch-- this visual performance is Sunday November 13th for those who go to: https://gonzotronics.net/adh/