THE piper beamed, and began playing his pipe; and not three notes had sounded before rats of all shapes, sizes and colours started pouring out of the houses. Bewitched, all but one very old rat followed him down to the river, where they drowned.

Satisfied, the piper went to the mayor and demanded his thousand gilders. ‘That’ said the mayor hastily ‘was a joke. But we’ll go as high as fifty.’ So the piper put his pipe to his lips, and not three notes had sounded before children of all kinds started pouring out of the houses. Tripping and skipping merrily, all but one lame boy followed him through the streets, across the river and, to the horror of the mayor and corporation, into a cave that suddenly opened up in the hillside.

There they passed out of sight and knowledge; and though rumours came of boys and girls in German dress who had mysteriously appeared in far-off Transylvania, the townsfolk never saw their children again.