I can vouch for the truth of some of Robert Browning's lines:
Hamelin Town's in Brunswick,
By famous Hanover city;
The river Weser deep and wide,
Washes its walls on the southern side;
A pleasanter spot you never spied.
One could quibble. Hamelin, for instance, is now in Lower Saxony, not Brunswick; the Weser flanks its "western" side; and nowadays it is Hameln, not Hamelin. But the last line is very, very true - and I should know, since I was there on Saturday.
Hameln's, or Hamelin's, claim to fame is widely known.
The rats!
They fought the dogs, they killed the cats,
And bit the babies in the cradles,
And ate the cheese out of the vats,
And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladles.
Now rats are proverbially prolific. One of the few things that can hold numbers down is a cold winter, as it makes them less enthusiastic breeders. From about 1450 onwards northern Europe entered the period of severe winter weather known now as the Little Ice Age, but before that enjoyed several centuries of benign conditions, when the climate was warmer than now. It is not surprising then that in the balmy atmosphere of the 13th century, Hamelin had a plague.
A plague there was. In July 1284 a mysterious piper in a multicoloured suit arrived, the Rattenfanger, who offered to rid it of its vermin for a certain sum, an offer readily accepted by townspeople. The pied piper fulfilled his contract by piping the rats into the Weser, where they drowned.
Their problem solved, the citizens of Hamelin allegedly reneged upon the deal, and as we know, the piper took his revenge. He played his pipe again, and
All the little boys and girls,
With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls,
And sparkling eyes, and teeth like pearls,
Tripping and skipping ran merrily after
The wonderful music with shouting and laughter.
The piper led them to a cave, into which all except one disappeared, never to be heard of any more.
Hameln has recovered. There are many children to be seen, and twice as many rats! Today's rats are not vermin, but engravings on the cobbled streets to provide a trail along which to walk and view the city's hundreds of magnificent 16th-century half-timbered buildings.
Following the rats, you will pass down Kupferschmiedestrasse by Gerry Buckley's pub, The Irish Rover, where he will serve you with an excellent Irish pint to put this tale in some perspective.