In the year 1284, after the birth of Christ,
There were led out of Hameln
One hundred and thirty children, natives of that place,
By a Piper, and were lost under the mountain.
The reader will perhaps be surprised at the smallness of the number
recorded of the children lost. But, Hameln is not a large town, and was
most likely even less populous six hundred years ago than it is at the
present day.