Once upon a time, in the city of Hamelin, the people lived but with a lot of stress and concern. This was because the city was infested with rats everywhere. Homes, schools, hospitals, hotels and every known place was filled with rats. When people opened boxes, they found rats. When people opened food vessels, they found rats. When people opened books, they found rats again!! Diseases started to spread and soon people fell ill and some of them started to die too,
The people who were there approached the mayor for a solution on this. The mayor tried to release some cats, but they were not enough for the huge population of mice in the city. In fact, the cats were chased out by the mice. The mayor thought and thought and could not find any idea. The people were growing restless and the mayor could sense the rising tension.
At this time, a strange person entered Hamelin. He was swinging his flute around and he walked towards the crowd gathered around a building. He saw that it was the mayor’s office and so he went up to the mayor and asked him what was going on. The mayor told him everything about the problem and the stranger said that he had an ideal solution for this. The stranger then asked what the mayor would offer him as a reward for his solution. He said that he would give him 10,000 gold coins as a reward. The stranger accepted and then went outside as the people wondered how a man with a flute was going to solve their problems.
The stranger took his flute and started playing an eerie but pleasant tune and walked at the same time, towards the centre of the city. The entire city was now able to hear his beautiful song and they were all mesmerised by it. But a few minutes later, something extraordinary happened. All the rats in the city came out from their hiding spots and went to the stranger who was playing the music from his flute. The stranger then started to walk towards the outskirts of the city, continuously playing his flute. A huge horde of rats, probably more than a thousand, followed him wherever he went. He played his flute and walked out of the city. He walked through pastures, forests and dry lands and finally reached a cliff. The rats followed him to the edge of the cliff as he stood at the highest point. The rats who were mesmerised by the music, however continued to walk and fell over the cliff into the sea below. They all drowned and died and the stranger went back to Hamelin.
The people were very happy and praised the stranger and hence they bestowed him with the name of “The Pied Piper of Hamelin”. The piper made his way to the mayor’s office and asked for his reward. But the mayor was greedy and did not want to give him the 10,000 gold coins he promised. Instead, he offered him 500 gold coins as a reward. The piper grew angry and walked out of the mayor’s office.
He played his flute once again and all the people heard an eerie and sweet music once again, but it was a different tune from before. This time, something else happened. All the children from the homes and schools came and gathered around the piper as he walked fast out of sight from the people. The piper took them somewhere behind some mountains and hid them and then came back to the mayor’s office. The people were furious and shouting at the mayor in order to get back their children from the piper. The shameless mayor pointed his finger at the piper and tried to divert the public attention towards him. The piper then shouted saying that he would release the children unharmed if the mayor gave the reward as promised.
The people then understood what was going on and they forced the mayor to give the reward of 10,000 gold coins as promised to the piper. The mayor then saw that he had no other choice and so he went and apologised to the piper. After that he gave him the reward of 10,000 gold coins and the piper went and brought back the children from behind the mountain. The pied piper then left the town and all of them lived happily ever after.