Disir
Platinum Member
- Sep 30, 2011
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- By Raphael Kadushin
Every working morning for the last 26 years, Michael Boyer has slipped into a pair of neon-bright, multi-coloured tights, tied on his lipstick-red cape, grabbed his flute and marched out into the medieval streets of Hamelin, a town of 60,000 residents in Lower Saxony, Germany.
People sometimes mistake me for a superhero, court jester or Robin Hood,” he laughed. He’s also increasingly become an Instagram prop for tourists and, maybe in some woke eyes, a gender-fluid statement.
But most people recognise him for what he is, the Pied Piper incarnate, appointed by Hamelin to impersonate its simultaneously favourite (at least commercially) and least favourite adopted son. Responsible for meeting and greeting visiting groups and dignitaries, he leads tours of the city and embodies the enduring hold of the legend that draws most travellers here.
The grim truth behind the Pied Piper
Writers like the Grimm Brothers and Robert Browning may have shaped the Pied Piper legend into art, but it turns out the story is likely based on an actual historical incident.
www.bbc.com
There are a myriad of theories to explain the kid's disappearance. I think the dancing plague one is interesting. Not likely but interesting.
