Oldest known illustration of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. It is from a painted glass window in the Marktkirche (Market) Church in Hamelin, created by Augustin von Moersperg in 1592.
The German city made famous by the fabled Pied Piper is being overrun once again by a modern-day rat infestation — this time with no one to pipe the pests out of town.
An abandoned public garden in Hamelin has become a haven for exploding numbers of mice and rats, which are finding an overabundance of food in a nearby garbage dump.
All this as the community prepares for the 725th anniversary of the end of its most famous rat plague.
But unlike in June of 1284, there is no piper to lure the rats to a drowning death in the nearby Weser River.
That event was the basis of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale in which the townsfolk refused to pay the piper for his extermination services.
In retaliation, he did the same with Hamelin’s children, who were never seen again.
Illustration: Augustin von Moersperg (1592)