Viaje en familia con Forti Club

The Pied Piper of Hamlyn

forticlub > fortistories > The Pied Piper of Hamlyn

A long, long time ago, in the rich city of Hamlyn, happened something very strange: when the fat and satisfied inhabitants left their houses one morning, they found their streets infested with thousands of rats that roamed everywhere, insatiably devouring the grain from the full silos and the food from the well-stocked larders. Nobody could understand what had caused such an invasion, and worse still, no-one knew what to do to get rid of such a worrying plague.

The more they tried to kill them or, at least to scare them away, the more rats continued to invade the city. As the days went by, there were so many rats that they took over the streets and houses, and even the cats got scared and ran away.

Seeing as the situation was serious, the town’s elders realised that their wealth was in danger because of the gluttonous rats and they held a meeting of the Council and said: “We will give one hundred gold coins to anyone who can get rid of the rats”.

A while later, Forti appeared. He was a melancholy flautist, tall and ungainly whom no-one had seen before. He said to them: “The reward is mine.There will not be a single rat left in Hamlyn by tonight”.

Having said this, he started to walk through the streets, playing a wonderful tune on his flute. The rats loved this tune, they were fascinated by it and they came out of their hiding places to follow in Forti’s footsteps as he constantly played his flute.

He carried on playing and walking, leading the rats to a very far-away place, so far away that not even the city walls could be seen from there. A fast flowing river passed through the area which drowned all the rats when they tried to follow Forti across it.

The dwellers in Hamlyn breathed a sigh of relief when they saw that they were free of the fierce rats. Now that they were calm and satisfied, they went back to their businesses and they were so happy that they organised a huge party to celebrate their happy ending. They ate fine foot and danced until very late at night. The following morning, Forti appeared before the Council and claimed the one hundred gold coins from the city’s elders as his reward. But the elders were free of their problem and, blinded by their greed, they answered: “Get out of our city! What makes you think that we will pay you so much gold just for being able to play the flute?". Having said this, the Hamlyn Council Elders turned their back on Forti and started to laugh loudly.

Forti was furious at the green and ingratitude of the people from Hamlyn and, just like the previous day, started to play a sweet persuasive melody over and over again.

But this time it wasn’t the rats that followed him. Instead, the children from the town were enchanted by that wonderful sound and followed in the footsteps of the strange musician.

Smiling and holding each other`s hands, they formed a long line, deaf to the pleas and shouts that their parents uttered between cries of desperation, trying to stop them from following Forti.

Not one of them stopped and Forti took them far, far away - so far that no-one knew where they had gone and the children, just like the rats, never returned. The only things left in the city were the fat adults with their full grain stores and well stock larders, protected by solid walls and an immense blanket of silence and sadness.

And this is what happened many, many years ago in this deserted and empty city of Hamlyn where you will never find a rat or a child, no matter how much you search.

THE END (based on the story The Pied Piper of Hamlyn)