tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9409160.post8515564237452013622..comments2024-02-19T07:06:52.139-05:00Comments on Twilight Language: Phantom Clowns: Pied Piper of HamelinLoren Colemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10705306131201565523noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9409160.post-25043264491724292912016-09-12T19:13:34.238-04:002016-09-12T19:13:34.238-04:00Loren,
Looking at the history of the Pied Piper, ...Loren,<br /><br />Looking at the history of the Pied Piper, I find a couple of intriguing Twilight Language connections with present day events. <br /><br />Let's start with the image you post. It was a painting made in 1592, copying the stained glass window that appeared in the Marktkirche (Market-Church) in Hamelin that was originally built in the early 13th Century. <br /><br />English translation of a story written in Latin by a monk in 1370:<br />https://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/ojs/index.php/tlg/article/view/390/383<br /><br /><i>To be noted is a marvellous and truly extraordinary event that occurred in the town of Hamelin in the diocese of Minden in the year of the Lord 1284, on the very feast-day of Saints John and Paul. [June 26]<br /><br />A young man of 30 years, handsome and in all respects so finely dressed that all who saw him were awestruck by his person and clothing came in by way of the bridge and the Weser Gate. <br /><br />On a silver pipe which he had, of wonderful form, he began to play through the whole town, and all the children hearing him, to the number of 130, followed him beyond the eastern wall almost to the place of the Calvary or Gallows field, and vanished and disappeared so that nobody could find out where any one of them had gone.</i><br />---------<br /><br /><br />Notice that rats are conspicuously missing from these early accounts of the Pied Piper. He only leads children away with his piping. <br /> <br />Now we come to the German versions of the tale which include rats. Indeed the German word for Pied Piper is <b><i>Rattenfänger</i></b>, which means “Rat-Catcher.” The Brothers Grimm fairy tale of the Pied Piper, written in 1816, contains many of the same specific details from the above monk's account from 1370, which are missing from the English version of the tale. However Grimm adds the rats to the story, likely because Rat-Catchers made the scene in Europe in the years after the Black plague struck there in 1348. <br />https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pied_Piper_of_Hamelin<br /><br />In the monk's tale, the Pied Piper arrives in Hamlin on June 26, 1284, a good 6 or 7 decades before the Black Plague strikes Europe. <br /><br />But then several scholars suggest that the Pied Piper tale is not at all about the plague but rather about the Children's Crusade which supposedly took place in 1212, a good 7 decades BEFORE the Piper arrives in Hamlin. <br />https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Crusade<br /><br />Now whether or not this Crusade was an actual historical event is not relevant to the fact that it still sits in our collective mythological unconsciousness and therefore may well inform present day events or memes as part of Twilight Language<br /><br />I quote the opening of the Wikipedia entry as the first foray into Pied Piper Twilight language<br /><br /><i>The Children's Crusade is the name given to a disastrous Crusade by European Christians <b>to expel Muslims from the Holy Land</b> said to have taken place in 1212. The traditional narrative is probably conflated from some factual and mythical notions of the period including visions by a French boy and a German boy, an intention <b>to peacefully convert Muslims in the Holy Land to Christianity</b>, bands of children marching to Italy, and children being sold into slavery.</i><br /><br />I raise this question: Could the present Phantom Clown flap with its fearsome specter of abducting children away from their parents be a kind of psychological displacement or denial of both American and Central European xenophobia, especially directed at Muslims who we fear want to convert us to Islam?Tom Melletthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08936656201755834225noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9409160.post-35625575391594022842016-09-12T13:30:41.029-04:002016-09-12T13:30:41.029-04:00I read Mysterious America for the first time back ...I read Mysterious America for the first time back in the mid-90s and I have returned to it time after time as a solid resource for all things weird and wonderful (and I cited it is a reference for my own self-published work). The section on Phantom Clowns was always a favorite of mine and I absolutely loved the way that you tied in the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin into modern sightings of strange men attired in bright colored clothing and makeup, who seem to have a disturbing predilection for attempting to lure children away. Repeating patterns such as this have always made me wonder if any kind of strange happenings in modern times are truly "new" or if they are simply manifestations of ageless weirdness which differ only slightly as they are described by witnesses within the modern social construct of their times. The hints that these are possibly repeats of timeless events lies in the name similarities and witness descriptions, that seem to vary only slightly over time. This blog is vital to trying to understand it all.Strange Beaconshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10714436586112358199noreply@blogger.com