_Source._--Abraham Elder, _Tales and Legends of the Isle of Wight_
(London, 1839), pp. 157-164. Mr. Nutt, who has abridged and partly
rewritten the story from a copy of Elder's book in his possession, has
introduced a couple of touches from Browning.
_Parallels._--The well-known story of the Pied Piper of Hameln
(Hamelin), immortalised by Browning, will at once recur to every
reader's mind. Before Browning, it had been told in English in books as
well known as Verstegan's _Restitution of Decayed Intelligence_, 1605;
Howell's _Familiar Letters_ (see my edition, p. 357, _n._); and Wanley's
_Wonders of the Little World_. Browning is said to have taken it from
the last source (Furnivall, _Browning Bibliography_, 158), though there
are touches which seem to me to come from Howell (see my note _ad
loc._), while it is not impossible he may have come across Elder's book,
which was illustrated by Cruikshank. The Grimms give the legend in their
_Deutsche Sagen_ (ed. 1816, 330-33), and in its native land it has given
rise to an elaborate poem _à la_ Scheffel by Julius Wolff, which has in
its turn been the occasion of an opera by Victor Nessler. Mrs. Gutch, in
an interesting study of the myth in _Folk-Lore_ iii., pp. 227-52, quotes
a poem, _The Sea Piece_, published by Dr. Kirkpatrick in 1750, as
showing that a similar legend was told of the Cave Hill, Belfast.
Here, as Tradition's hoary legend tells,
A blinking Piper once with magic Spells
And strains beyond a vulgar Bagpipe's sounds
Gathered the dancing Country wide around.
When hither as he drew the tripping Rear
(Dreadful to think and difficult to swear!)
The gaping Mountain yawned from side to side,
A hideous Cavern, darksome, deep, and wide;
In skipt th' exulting Demon, piping loud,
With passive joy succeeded by the Crowd.
* * * * *
There firm and instant closed the greedy Womb,
Where wide-born Thousands met a common Tomb.
_Remarks._--Mr. Baring-Gould, in his _Curious Myths of the Middle Ages_,
has explained the Pied Piper as a wind myth. Mrs. Gutch is inclined to
think there may be a substratum of fact at the root of the legend,
basing her conclusions on a pamphlet of Dr. Meinardus, _Der historische
Kern_, which I have not seen. She does not, however, give any
well-authenticated historical event at Hameln in the thirteenth century
which could have plausibly given rise to the legend, nor can I find any
in the _Urkundenbuch_ of Hameln (Luneberg, 1883). The chief question of
interest attaching to the English form of the legend as given in 1839 by
Elder, is whether it is independent of the German myth. It does not
occur in any of the local histories of the Isle of Wight which I have
been able to consult of a date previous to Elder's book--_e.g._, J.
Hassel, _Tour of the Isle of Wight_, 1790. Mr. Shore, in his _History of
Hampshire_, 1891, p. 185, refers to the legend, but evidently bases his
reference on Elder, and so with all the modern references I have seen.
Now Elder himself quotes Verstegan in his comments on the legend, pp.
168-9 and note, and it is impossible to avoid conjecturing that he
adapted Verstegan to the locality. Newtown, when Hassel visited it in
1790, had only six or seven houses (_l.c._, i., 137-8), though it had
the privilege of returning two members to Parliament; it had been a
populous town by the name of Franchville before the French invasion of
the island of _temp._ Ric. II. It is just possible that there may have
been a local legend to account for the depopulation by an exodus of the
children. But the expression "pied piper" which Elder used clearly came
from Verstegan, and until evidence is shown to the contrary the whole
of the legend was adapted from him. It is not without significance that
Elder was writing in the days of the _Ingoldsby Legends_, and had
possibly no more foundation for the localisation of his stories than
Barham.
There still remains the curious parallel from Belfast to which Mrs.
Gutch has drawn attention. Magic pipers are not unknown to English
folk-lore, as in the Percy ballad of _The Frere and the Boy_, or in the
nursery rhyme of Tom the Piper's son in its more extended form. But
beguiling into a mountain is not known elsewhere except at Hameln, which
was made widely known in England by Verstegan's and Howell's accounts,
so that the Belfast variant is also probably to be traced to the
_Rattenfänger_. Here again, as in the case of Beddgellert (_Celtic Fairy
Tales_, No. xxi.), the Blinded Giant and the Pedlar of Swaffham
(_infra_, Nos. lxi., lxiii.), we have an imported legend adapted to
local conditions.