The Hamelin Project
The Hamelin Project
You know the story of the Pied Piper
But that's not quite where the story began.
In 1284, something happened in the German town of Hamelin.
More than seven centuries later, we're still trying to understand what.
Start with a question
The familiar story is only the beginning. Choose a question and follow the evidence.
Did it really happen?
What can the surviving evidence actually tell us about the events behind the Pied Piper story?
Were there always rats?
The most famous part of the Pied Piper story wasn't there at the beginning.
Why are there so many versions?
Follow seven centuries of retelling and discover how the story changed along the way.
Follow the investigation
New discoveries, historical sources and unexpected rabbit holes from the research.
They were already arguing about it
Were scholars asking the same questions about the Pied Piper 300 years ago?
How do you lose a paragraph?
What happens when a paragraph disappears from a 300-year-old book?
Go deeper
Behind the familiar story lies centuries of historical evidence, scholarship and debate.
Meet Christoph Friedrich Fein
In 1749, a German scholar set out to investigate the story of Hamelin. His little-known work preserves sources, arguments and questions that still matter to the mystery today.
One mystery. Seven centuries of questions.
The Hamelin Project is an independent historical research project exploring the evidence behind the Pied Piper of Hamelin — from the earliest surviving traces of the story to the scholars who have spent centuries trying to explain it.
