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Pied Piper of Hamelin, The
About the Story
Robert Browning’s 1842 poem is based on a legend about the disappearance of children from the town of Hamelin, Germany. The earliest mention of the legend dates to a stained glass window (1300) located in a church in Hamelin. A watercolor painting by Freiherr Augustin von Moersperg (pictured above) depicts this window, which was destroyed in 1660. It is thought that the window was created to commemorate a tragic historical event when many Hamelin children died or disappeared. The addition of rats to the legend was not added until 1559 and some scholars theorize that the legend could refer to a mass emigration to Eastern Europe in the 13th century, or that an epidemic, a drowning accident, or a landslide lead to the demise of the children. Kate Greenaway’s illustrations of the “The Pied Piper of Hamelin” were printed in 1888. Kate Greenaway had a photographic memory and based many of her watercolor illustrations on her childhood, which she regarded as the happiest time of her life. The Kate Greenaway Medal is awarded annually in Great Britain to honor children’s book illustrators.
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