The made for television movie of The Pied Piper of Hamelin is one of those things from my early youth that has stuck with me. I think this is probably because of the music of Edvard Grieg. My mother has an old army buddy that was living in Torrance in 1957 when this film was aired. I have always remembered it as Easter but upon doing some research I find that it was actually at Thanksgiving. The film is now in the public domain and as such it was included in a set of 50 musicals I recently ordered for my mother. I was of course curious to see it again.

The film is based on a poem by Robert Browning, which in turn is based on a version of the legend from Richard Rowland Verstegan (1548-c. 1636). The film has a "happy" ending which other versions do not share, the children come home again. What struck me watching it recently was its value as a parable about the consequences of greed, the town of Hamelin had to "pay the piper" because of their attempt to not pay the piper. I find it strange, having grown up exposed to media expressing the consequences of greed, that we continue to follow greedy paths.

The legend of the Pied Piper is interesting in it's own right. There is no clear record of what actually occurred there in 1284. One current theory has it that many of the people from the town migrated away to eastern Europe and possibly Transylvania. Other speculation is that the children were sold to a recruiter from the Baltic region of Eastern Europe, a practice that was not uncommon at the time. We return again to the greed element and the town, 100 years later regrets their action. Here is an excerpt from a Wikipedia article ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pied_Piper_of_Hamelin ):

The earliest mention of the story seems to have been on a stained glass window placed in the Church of Hamelin c. 1300. The window was described in several accounts between the 14th century and the 17th century.[citation needed] It was destroyed in 1660. Based on the surviving descriptions, a modern reconstruction of the window has been created by Hans Dobbertin (historian). It features the colorful figure of the Pied Piper and several figures of children dressed in white.
This window is generally considered to have been created in memory of a tragic historical event for the city. Also, Hamelin town records start with this event. The earliest written record is from the town chronicles in an entry from 1384 which states:
"It is 100 years since our children left"
Although research has been conducted for centuries, no explanation for the historical event is agreed upon. In any case, the rats were first added to the story in a version from c. 1559 and are absent from earlier accounts.