The New International Encyclopædia/Pied Piper of Hamelin, The

PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN, The. A poem by Robert Browning (1842), written for a child of Macready, the actor, on the old legend of the piper who agreed to rid the town of rats in 1284, and, because he was not paid, lured the children of Hamelin by his playing to a cave in the mountain, where they disappeared.