I’m sure you’re all familiar with the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Although more legend than truth, it’s based on events dating back to the Middle Ages, around 1284.
As the story goes, the German town of Hamelin hired a piper who promised to solve it’s rat infestation by luring them into the Weser River with his magical pipe. As the story goes, the dastardly Mayor of Hamelin refused to pay the piper the gold he had promised. In retaliation, the piper used his pipe to enchant the children of the town. They followed him to Keppenberg Mountain, where they were magically swallowed up.
One theory is that the piper was a professional rat catcher, and the children who disappeared were actually victims of the plague the rats carried. The earliest known record of this story is from Hamelin, where the piper’s image was set in stained glass in the town’s now-destroyed church. So, yeah, the pied piper was a real person.
No, I’m not using this month’s column to analyze this Brothers Grimm fairytale. I just see some parallels between the Mayor of Hamelin and the modern car dealer, with the piper being that salesperson or manager who was run out of the business because of an increasingly reduced pay plan.
Read the whole article here on F&I and Showroom.
