Saturday 14 November 2009

The Pied Piper of Hamelin

Care for a little bit of spooky fairytale for a grim November day? Assiduous readers here probably know about my fear of rats. Therefore, when there is a story involving them, I cannot help but to find it particularly scary, whether it is a horror story or simply a fairy tale (which are often just as horrific). So the story of the piper who first save the town of Hamelin from hords of rats, then takes his revenge on the greedy townspeople really fascinates me. Apart from the rats, there is a lot of interesting stuff in the tale: the hypnotic/mesmerising power of music, the morally ambiguous nature of the Piper, his mysterious background, etc. I am not sure when I first heard of The Pied Piper of Hamelin, but I remember watching as a young child the claymation adaptation of the poetic version of the tale by Robert Browning. This is the version that I am putting here. It is a haunting one. The characterisation is brilliant, the poem wonderfully told, the atmosphere is juuuuust scary enough to be watched by a child and there are the rats! Magnificently ugly, hairy, squeeky, bity, devilish rats. One can understand, can see, can feel what kind of pests they were, what danger they represented and what horror the townspeople of Hamelin were enduring.





6 comments:

Gwen Buchanan said...

once you get to Rats they aren't as scary as we are always lead to believe... just one more critter trying to survive... but as much as I have come to like them... I'm not crazy about their tails.. don't know why, maybe they remind me of Snakes and even though I know there are a lot of beneficial Snakes in the world... and as much as I have tried to love snakes... they give me the creeps!!!

Jazz said...

This story scared the crap out of me as a child.

And re rats... I'd actually like to get a couple as pets. I think they're seriously cool animals. When I do, wanna come to dinner? ;-)

Gwen Buchanan said...

I just finished watching (as I was working on some earrings)... what a well done piece of work.. Thanks for offering it!!

The Artful Gypsy aka Wendy the Very Good Witch said...

So can we assume that you didn't care for Ratatouille (sp?) then? ;o)

Guillaume said...

Jazz-Yes, it was a scary story. My wifelikes rats too and can't understand my fear of them.
Gwen-It's a great animated movie really. And I know rats are not evil, but I can't help it.
Wendy-I actually liked Ratatouille, but I find myself shivering at some moments in the movie. My wife likes to tease me with it.

Gwen Buchanan said...

..."And I know rats are not evil, but I can't help it."...

you're Funny!!!!!