The Ratcatcher

The ratcatcher.’

The town council had just assembled to consider once more this plague

of Egypt, from which no one could save the town.

The stranger sent word to the counsellors that, if they would make it

worth his while, he would rid them of all their rats before night, down

to the very last.

‘Then he is a sorcerer!’ cried the citizens with one voice; ‘we must

beware of him.’

The Town Counsellor, who was considered clever, reassured them.

He said: ‘Sorcerer or no, if this bagpiper speaks the truth, it was he

who sent us this horrible vermin that he wants to rid us of to-day for

money. Well, we must learn to catch the devil in his own snares. You

leave it to me.’

‘Leave it to the Town Counsellor,’ said the citizens one to another.

And the stranger was brought before them.

‘Before night,’ said he, ‘I shall have despatched all the rats in Hamel

if you will but pay me a gros a head.’

‘A gros a head!’ cried the citizens, ‘but that will come to millions

of florins!’

The Town Counsellor simply shrugged his shoulders and said to the

stranger:

‘A bargain! To work; the rats will be paid one gros a head as you

ask.’

The bagpiper announced that he would operate that very evening when the

moon rose. He added that the inhabitants should at that hour leave the

streets free, and content themselves with looking out of their windows

at what was passing, and that it would be a pleasant spectacle. When

the people of Hamel heard of the bargain, they too exclaimed: ‘A gros

a head! but this will cost us a deal of money!’

‘Leave it to the Town Counsellor,’ said the town council with a

malicious air. And the good people of Hamel repeated with their

counsellors, ‘Leave it to the Town Counsellor.’

Towards nine at night the bagpiper re-appeared on the market place. He

turned, as at first, his back to the church, and the moment the moon

rose on the horizon, ‘Trarira, trari!’ the bagpipes resounded.

It was first a slow, caressing sound, then more and more lively and

urgent, and so sonorous and piercing that it penetrated as far as the

farthest alleys and retreats of the town.

Soon from the bottom of the cellars, the top of the garrets, from under

all the furniture, from all the nooks and corners of the houses, out

come the rats, search for the door, fling themselves into the street,

and trip, trip, trip, begin to run in file towards the front of the

town hall, so squeezed together that they covered the pavement like the

waves of flooded torrent.

When the square was quite full the bagpiper faced about, and, still

playing briskly, turned towards the river that runs at the foot of the

walls of Hamel.

Arrived there he turned round; the rats were following.

‘Hop! hop!’ he cried, pointing with his finger to the middle of the

stream, where the water whirled and was drawn down as if through a

funnel. And hop! hop! without hesitating, the rats took the leap, swam

straight to the funnel, plunged in head foremost and disappeared.

The plunging continued thus without ceasing till midnight.

At last, dragging himself with difficulty, came a big rat, white with

age, and stopped on the bank.

It was the king of the band.

‘Are they all there, friend Blanchet?’ asked the bagpiper.

‘They are all there,’ replied friend Blanchet.

‘And how many were they?’

‘Nine hundred and ninety thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine.’

‘Well reckoned?’

‘Well reckoned.’

‘Then go and join them, old sire, and au revoir.’

Then the old white rat sprang in his turn into the river, swam to the

whirlpool and disappeared.

When the bagpiper had thus concluded his business he went to bed at his

inn. And for the first time during three months the people of Hamel

slept quietly through the night.

The next morning, at nine o’clock, the bagpiper repaired to the town

hall, where the town council awaited him.

‘All your rats took a jump into the river yesterday,’ said he to the

counsellors, ‘and I guarantee that not one of them comes back. They

were nine hundred and ninety thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine, at

one gros a head. Reckon!’

‘Let us reckon the heads first. One gros a head is one head the

gros. Where are the heads?’

The ratcatcher did not expect this treacherous stroke. He paled with

anger and his eyes flashed fire.

‘The heads!’ cried he, ‘if you care about them, go and find them in the

river.’

‘So,’ replied the Town Counsellor, ‘you refuse to hold to the terms of

your agreement? We ourselves could refuse you all payment. But you have

been of use to us, and we will not let you go without a recompense,’

and he offered him fifty crowns.

‘Keep your recompense for yourself,’ replied the ratcatcher proudly.

‘If you do not pay me I will be paid by your heirs.’

Thereupon he pulled his hat down over his eyes, went hastily out of the

hall, and left the town without speaking to a soul.

When the Hamel people heard how the affair had ended they rubbed their

hands, and with no more scruple than their Town Counsellor, they

laughed over the ratcatcher, who, they said, was caught in his own

trap. But what made them laugh above all was his threat of getting

himself paid by their heirs. Ha! they wished that they only had such

creditors for the rest of their lives.

Next day, which was a Sunday, they all went gaily to church, thinking

that after Mass they would at last be able to eat some good thing that

the rats had not tasted before them.

They never suspected the terrible surprise that awaited them on their

return home. No children anywhere, they had all disappeared!

‘Our children! where are our poor children?’ was the cry that was soon

heard in all the streets.

Then through the east door of the town came three little boys, who

cried and wept, and this is what they told:

While the parents were at church a wonderful music had resounded. Soon

all the little boys and all the little girls that had been left at home

had gone out, attracted by the magic sounds, and had rushed to the

great market-place. There they found the ratcatcher playing his

bagpipes at the same spot as the evening before. Then the stranger had

begun to walk quickly, and they had followed, running, singing and

dancing to the sound of the music, as far as the foot of the mountain

which one sees on entering Hamel. At their approach the mountain had

opened a little, and the bagpiper had gone in with them, after which it

had closed again. Only the three little ones who told the adventure had

remained outside, as if by a miracle. One was bandy-legged and could

not run fast enough; the other, who had left the house in haste, one

foot shod the other bare, had hurt himself against a big stone and

could not walk without difficulty; the third had arrived in time, but

in harrying to go in with the others had struck so violently against

the wall of the mountain that he fell backwards at the moment it closed

upon his comrades.

At this story the parents redoubled their lamentations. They ran with

pikes and mattocks to the mountain, and searched till evening to find

the opening by which their children had disappeared, without being able

to find it. At last, the night falling, they returned desolate to

Hamel.

But the most unhappy of all was the Town Counsellor, for he lost three

little boys and two pretty little girls, and to crown all, the people

of Hamel overwhelmed him with reproaches, forgetting that the evening

before they had all agreed with him.

What had become of all these unfortunate children?

The parents always hoped they were not dead, and that the rat-catcher,

who certainly must have come out of the mountain, would have taken them

with him to his country. That is why for several years they sent in

search of them to different countries, but no one ever came on the

trace of the poor little ones.

It was not till much later that anything was to be heard of them.

About one hundred and fifty years after the event, when there was no

longer one left of the fathers, mothers, brothers or sisters of that

day, there arrived one evening in Hamel some merchants of Bremen

returning from the East, who asked to speak with the citizens. They

told that they, in crossing Hungary, had sojourned in a mountainous

country called Transylvania, where the inhabitants only spoke German,

while all around them nothing was spoken but Hungarian. These people

also declared that they came from Germany, but they did not know how

they chanced to be in this strange country. ‘Now,’ said the merchants

of Bremen, ‘these Germans cannot be other than the descendants of the

lost children of Hamel.’

The people of Hamel did not doubt it; and since that day they regard it

as certain that the Transylvanians of Hungary are their country folk,

whose ancestors, as children, were brought there by the ratcatcher.

There are more difficult things to believe than that.[16]

[16] Ch. Marelles.

THE TRUE HISTORY OF LITTLE GOLDEN HOOD

You know the tale of poor Little Red Riding-hood, that the Wolf

deceived and devoured, with her cake, her little butter can, and her

Grandmother; well, the true story happened quite differently, as we

know now. And first of all the little girl was called and is still

called Little Golden-hood; secondly, it was not she, nor the good

grand-dame, but the wicked Wolf who was, in the end, caught and

devoured.

Only listen.

The story begins something like the tale.

There was once a little peasant girl, pretty and nice as a star in its

season. Her real name was Blanchette, but she was more often called

Little Golden-hood, on account of a wonderful little cloak with a hood,

gold- and fire-coloured, which she always had on. This little hood was

given her by her Grandmother, who was so old that she did not know her

age; it ought to bring her good luck, for it was made of a ray of

sunshine, she said. And as the good old woman was considered something

of a witch, everyone thought the little hood rather bewitched too.

And so it was, as you will see.

One day the mother said to the child: ‘Let us see, my little

Golden-hood, if you know now how to find your way by yourself. You

shall take this good piece of cake to your Grandmother for a Sunday

treat to-morrow. You will ask her how she is, and come back at once,

without stopping to chatter on the way with people you don’t know. Do

you quite understand?’

‘I quite understand,’ replied Blanchette gaily. And off she went with

the cake, quite proud of her errand.

But the Grandmother lived in another village, and there was a big wood

to cross before getting there. At a turn of the road under the trees,

suddenly ‘Who goes there?’

‘Friend Wolf.’

He had seen the child start alone, and the villain was waiting to

devour her; when at the same moment he perceived some wood-cutters who

might observe him, and he changed his mind. Instead of falling upon

Blanchette he came frisking up to her like a good dog.

‘’Tis you! my nice Little Golden-hood,’ said he. So the little girl

stops to talk with the Wolf, who, for all that, she did not know in the

least.

‘You know me, then!’ said she; ‘what is your name?’

‘My name is friend Wolf. And where are you going thus, my pretty one,

with your little basket on your arm?’

‘I am going to my Grandmother, to take her a good piece of cake for her

Sunday treat to-morrow.’

‘And where does she live, your Grandmother?’

‘She lives at the other side of the wood, in the first house in the

village, near the windmill, you know.’

‘Ah! yes! I know now,’ said the Wolf. ‘Well, that’s just where I’m

going; I shall get there before you, no doubt, with your little bits of

legs, and I’ll tell her you’re coming to see her; then she’ll wait for

you.’

Thereupon the Wolf cuts across the wood, and in five minutes arrives at

the Grandmother’s house.

He knocks at the door: toc, toc.

No answer.

He knocks louder.

Nobody.

Then he stands up on end, puts his two fore-paws on the latch and the

door opens.

Not a soul in the house.

The old woman had risen early to sell herbs in the town, and she had

gone off in such haste that she had left her bed unmade, with her great

night-cap on the pillow.

‘Good!’ said the Wolf to himself, ‘I know what I’ll do.’

He shuts the door, pulls on the Grandmother’s night-cap down to his

eyes, then he lies down all his length in the bed and draws the

curtains.

In the meantime the good Blanchette went quietly on her way, as little

girls do, amusing herself here and there by picking Easter daisies,

watching the little birds making their nests, and running after the

butterflies which fluttered in the sunshine.

At last she arrives at the door.

Knock, knock.

‘Who is there?’ says the Wolf, softening his rough voice as best he

can.

‘It’s me, Granny, your little Golden-hood. I’m bringing you a big piece

of cake for your Sunday treat to-morrow.’

‘Press your finger on the latch, then push and the door opens.’

‘Why, you’ve got a cold, Granny,’ said she, coming in.

‘Ahem! a little, a little...’ replies the Wolf, pretending to cough.

‘Shut the door well, my little lamb. Put your basket on the table, and

then take off your frock and come and lie down by me: you shall rest a

little.’

The good child undresses, but observe this! She kept her little hood

upon her head. When she saw what a figure her Granny cut in bed, the

poor little thing was much surprised.

‘Oh!’ cries she, ‘how like you are to friend Wolf, Grandmother!’

‘That’s on account of my night-cap, child,’ replies the Wolf.

‘Oh! what hairy arms you’ve got, Grandmother!’

‘All the better to hug you, my child.’

‘Oh! what a big tongue you’ve got, Grandmother!’

‘All the better for answering, child.’

‘Oh! what a mouthful of great white teeth you have, Grandmother!’

‘That’s for crunching little children with!’ And the Wolf opened his

jaws wide to swallow Blanchette.

But she put down her head crying:

‘Mamma! Mamma!’ and the Wolf only caught her little hood.

Thereupon, oh dear! oh dear! he draws back, crying and shaking his jaw

as if he had swallowed red-hot coals.

It was the little fire-coloured hood that had burnt his tongue right

down his throat.

The little hood, you see, was one of those magic caps that they used to

have in former times, in the stories, for making oneself invisible or

invulnerable.

So there was the Wolf with his throat burnt, jumping off the bed and

trying to find the door, howling and howling as if all the dogs in the

country were at his heels.

Just at this moment the Grandmother arrives, returning from the town

with her long sack empty on her shoulder.

‘Ah, brigand!’ she cries, ‘wait a bit!’ Quickly she opens her sack wide

across the door, and the maddened Wolf springs in head downwards.

It is he now that is caught, swallowed like a letter in the post.

For the brave old dame shuts her sack, so; and she runs and empties it

in the well, where the vagabond, still howling, tumbles in and is

drowned.

‘Ah, scoundrel! you thought you would crunch my little grandchild!

Well, to-morrow we will make her a muff of your skin, and you yourself

shall be crunched, for we will give your carcass to the dogs.’

Thereupon the Grandmother hastened to dress poor Blanchette, who was

still trembling with fear in the bed.

‘Well,’ she said to her, ‘without my little hood where would you be

now, darling?’ And, to restore heart and legs to the child, she made

her eat a good piece of her cake, and drink a good draught of wine,

after which she took her by the hand and led her back to the house.

And then, who was it who scolded her when she knew all that had

happened?

It was the mother.

But Blanchette promised over and over again that she would never more

stop to listen to a Wolf, so that at last the mother forgave her.

And Blanchette, the Little Golden-hood, kept her word. And in fine

weather she may still be seen in the fields with her pretty little

hood, the colour of the sun.

But to see her you must rise early.[17]

[17] Ch. Marelles.