The Irish Piper Went to Hamelin and Made a Big Impact...

On my favorite Irish Rovers album, the hard-to-find Tales to Warm Your Mind, the lads sing a song entitled The Minstrel of Cranberry Lane. This ballad does not involve rats, but it does feature an eccentric, exceptionally talented gentleman who lures children away from the prosaic town that so stifles them. It’s clear our sympathies are meant to lie with the singer.

I was interested, as I read the note at the back of Jim Latimer’s The Irish Piper, to discover that in the first stories about the Pied Piper of Hamelin, the piper merely breezes into town and lures away the children, without the motivation of having been cheated out of pay for a job well done with the rats. It makes the Rovers’ song seem even more connected to the story than before.

The Irish Piper, which is illustrated by John O’Brien, sticks more closely to Robert Browning’s version of the story than that, but this version is written in prose rather than rhyme, and it includes some very specific details about the musician’s origins and the type of music he might have played. Latimer also takes the liberty of making the mayor into a woman, which surprised me a bit as the story takes place hundreds of years ago, and of introducing a love interest for the piper.

Like Browning’s tale, Latimer’s is sprinkled with quite a bit of humor, and on the whole it’s not as dark. For instance, the story never confirms that the rats the piper leads away from town are drowned in the river; rather, it implies that he merely directs them to some distant land where they might make a life for themselves without being such nuisances.

Additionally, not only are the members of the town council disdainful of their hero, they badmouth their own children. In an amusing twist, they are already familiar with stories of the piper recruiting children, but they are convinced that such things would not happen in real life, especially since the kids are “mostly brats” and surely wouldn’t be much fun to travel with. In light of this kind of talk, it’s little wonder the children would be eager for a chance to get out of town.

As an enthusiast of Irish music, I can definitely buy into the author’s notion that the music of Country Clare “is magical and alluring... has grace and freedom... has breathless energy and heart-stopping rhythm... might easily have charmed all of the rats and all of the children of Hamelin.” He describes the music’s effects beautifully, too, talking about how he his sad songs “could make a group of gruff, grown men suddenly burst into tears” and his strong marches could “cause little husbands to stand up and talk back to their wives, even when the wives were blacksmiths and hammer throwers.” To say nothing of his “flying” music, and his extra-special “cheese-and-bacon” reel, intended for the rats, and “balloon-and-butterfly” jig, meant for the children.

O’Brien’s illustrations have an antiquated look about them and seem to have been done at least in part with a thought for imitating Kate Greenaway’s style in the iconic Robert Browning version. The colors are a bit on the drab side, but the pictures are detailed and, like the writing, have touches of humor. Still, as with Browning, it’s the particular way in which this very old story is written that really tickles my fancy. If it’s a tale that’s ever appealed to you, check out The Irish Piper this St. Patrick’s Day and allow his music to carry you away.