had not been able to share the rare luck of his comrades. In
the street through which this procession passed no music was
ever afterwards allowed to be played. For a long time the town
dated its public documents from this fearful calamity, and
many authorities have treated it as an historical event.[17]
Similar stories are told of other towns in Germany, and,
strange to say, in remote Abyssinia also. Wesleyan peasants in
England believe that angels pipe to children who are about to
die; and in Scandinavia, youths are said to have been enticed
away by the songs of elf-maidens. In Greece, the sirens by
their magic lay allured voyagers to destruction; and Orpheus
caused the trees and dumb beasts to follow him. Here we reach
the explanation. For Orpheus is the wind sighing through
untold acres of pine forest. "The piper is no other than the
wind, and the ancients held that in the wind were the souls of
the dead." To this day the English peasantry believe that they
hear the wail of the spirits of unbaptized children, as the
gale sweeps past their cottage doors. The Greek Hermes
resulted from the fusion of two deities. He is the sun and
also the wind; and in the latter capacity he bears away the
souls of the dead. So the Norse Odin, who like Hermes fillfils
a double function, is supposed to rush at night over the
tree-tops, "accompanied by the scudding train of brave men's
spirits." And readers of recent French literature cannot fail
to remember Erokmann-Chatrian's terrible story of the wild
huntsman Vittikab, and how he sped through the forest,
carrying away a young girl's soul.

[17] Hence perhaps the adage, "Always remember to pay the
piper."