"The Pied Piper of
Hamlin" by Maxfield Parrish at the Pied Piper Bar in the Palace Hotel,
San Francisco.
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
That
history repeats itself, is common knowledge. That a legend in one
country was repeated in another far-away country, is most rare.
Comparable
events that happened in the thirteenth century in Germany, and in the
nineteenth century in South Africa, amount, virtually, to a
repetition of history: the “Pied Piper” legend in
Germany, and the legend of the Witch named Lwerng, in Zululand, South
Africa.
In
the City of Hamelin in Germany, a fourteenth century town record
reads “It is 100 years since our children left.”
Also,
in an old stone house in the City of Hamelin, there is an
inscription, “A.D. 1284. On the 26th June, the
day
of St. John and St. Paul, 130 children, born in Hamelin, were led out
of town by a pied piper wearing multicolored clothes. After passing
Calvary, near the Koppenberg, they disappeared forever.”
The
town of Hamelin in the year 1284 had been plagued by an infestation
of rats. The many attempts by the citizens to rid the town of the
vermin pests, had failed.
A
man from another town came forward and offered to rid the town of the
infestation if he would be paid a stipulated sum of money. The Mayor
of Hamelin hired the man, on the spot. All the citizens agreed with
the Mayor.
The
man, dressed in multicolored clothes and a hat, walked through the
City as he performed a lively dance melody on his pipe, a homemade
musical mouth instrument.
The
melody hypnotized all the rats in the town to follow and to dance
with the piper. He dancingly led the rats to outside of Hamelin far
away into a forest. All the citizens of the town followed at a far
distance behind, some of them joyously giving in to the temptation to
dance along to the distant piped melody.
When
the piper disappeared into the forest with all the rats, the people
stopped following. The piper’s melody was heard no more.
After
a few minutes, the piper came out of the forest and informed the
Mayor and all the people that the rats had been eaten by wild animals
in the forest.
The
Mayor and all the people were overjoyed. But when the piper asked for
the payment agreed upon, the Mayor and all the people refused to pay.
They
laughed and smirked at the piper, and said that since the rats would
not be returning, the piper was welcome to live in Hamelin in a home
that would be given to him, free of charge.
When
the piper said he already had a home in another town, the Mayor and
all the people of Hamelin shrugged and continued to refuse to pay the
piper the payment agreed upon.
The
piper returned to the forest. The Mayor and all the people returned
happily to Hamelin and celebrated late into the night, feasting and
dancing and cheering and playing loud music on so many different
instruments.
It
was a full moon all through the night and for the first few hours
into the next morning. The joys of the celebrations were particularly
enhanced by unseasonably warm temperatures and refreshing gentle
breezes.
Too
many citizens drank themselves drunk, and danced wildly and garishly,
stark nakedly.
The
celebrations ended at midnight. Most of the citizens went to bed; too
many were content to sleep and snore on the ground under the
cloudless night sky.
The
piper, silently and secretly and surreptitiously and slowly, walked
into the City of Hamelin. He was out to punish the Mayor and all the
citizens for breaking their contractual promise to pay him to rid the
City of all those vermin rats.
He
played a rollicking ditty on his pipe as he walked through the City.
All the children awoke from their sleep; and joyfully followed the
piper, dancing and singing to the ditty. He led them in the direction
opposite to the forest. When he reached the Poppenberg Koppenberg
mountain far outside Hamelin, a magical door opened. The piper
continued playing his rollicking ditty as he led the happily dancing
singing children into the mountain through the magical door. When he
and all the children were inside the mountain, the magical door
closed.
The
Mayor and all the people of Hamelin never knew what had happened to
their children. From all the footprints on the ground, they guessed
the children had reached the Poppenberg Koppenberg mountain.
The
Mayor and all the people never knew of the piper’s role in the
disappearance of their children. However, in their search for
possible explanations, they, nonetheless, offered the piper ten times
the money they owed him, if he would help them find and return their
children.
The
piper never came forward to accept the offer of ten times the
original sum of money.
Within
a year, the Mayor and most of the citizens of Hamelin, were so
overwhelmed by guilty remorse at having dealt unfairly with the pied
piper, that they went insane and changed into rats and fled into the
forest where there were wild animals waiting to devour that cheater
of a mad Mayor, along with those cheater mad citizens.
That
happening in the City of Hamelin in the country of Germany in the
year 1284, is an unsolved mystery, to this day.
That
happening in the German City of Hamelin was repeated, mutatismutandis, 544 years later, far away in another
country:
Zululand in South Africa.
In
the year 1828, on the west coast of the Indian Ocean, King Shaka was
supreme ruler of Zululand, a kingdom he had created by ruthless wars
over decades. He had united all the independent Negroid Nguni tribes
into a single nation. He named his mighty nation, Zulu. The meaning
of the word ‘Zulu’ was ‘Heaven.’
Shaka
was the first king of the Zulus. Like Saul, thousands of years
previously in the Middle East, the first king of the Israelites,
Shaka believed in consulting Witches to help him rule his kingdom.
The
name of Shaka’s Witch was Lwerng. The name of the Witch king
Saul consulted, is unknown.
Lwerng
was much, much older than Shaka. After serving him loyally for
decades, their friendship suffered a setback because Shaka refused
Lwerng’s request that he discontinue his practice of killing
all the children of the tribes he defeated in his wars of conquest.
Shaka
refused to spare the children because he said that when the children
became adults, they would want revenge for the death of their
parents; and that by then he, Shaka, would be too old to defend
himself.
Lwerng’s
request did not arise from compassion for children. Over the decades,
the deaths of increasing numbers of children were having adverse
effects on her necromantic spells and potions. She informed king
Shaka that in order for her witch spells to be successful, the air in
his kingdom needed to be filled with the innocent actions of
blameless children. King Shaka did not believe her; instead, he
laughed and smirked at her, and contemptuously waved her out of his
royal presence.
Lwerng
became desperate. When she learnt of Shaka’s preparations of
war against a tribe, she secretly rounded up the children and their
mothers in that tribe. She offered her help to the men of that tribe,
too; but the men declined her offer because the men believed it would
be shameful of them to follow a woman.
Lwerng
led the children and their mothers to hide in the Drakensberg
Mountains, far to the southwest of Zululand.
Lwerng
fled to the mountains because years previously, she had uncovered, in
one of the spells she had conjured up at his request to help Shaka,
that he should stay away from mountains. She had informed him of this
mountain curse against him.
Shaka
subsequently won the war against the tribe from which Lwerng had
rescued all the children and their mothers. His spies eventually
discovered what had happened to Lwerng and the children and their
mothers. Shaka, remembering that mountains were unlucky for him, did
not try to look for Lwerng in the Drakensberg Mountains.
Nobody
ever found out what happened to the children, and their mothers, and
Lwerng, at the Drakensberg Mountains.
The
year Lwerng set about rescuing the children and their mothers was
1828. It was the same year Shaka was murdered by assassins paid by
his brother Dingane.
Both
first kings in their deaths were treated with ignominy.
Saul’s
corpse on the battlefield was deliberately decapitated by the enemy;
his head was never found. His headless corpse was nailed to a wall
inside a place of worship owned by the enemy, where it rotted for
days. His throne was not inherited by any of his children.
Shaka’s
assassins disposed of his corpse so secretly, that, to this day,
nobody knows where and how they did it. One popular belief, popular
because the probability was common practice among warring peoples in
Zululand in those times, was that the king’s corpse was
abandoned where wild animals could easily devour it. King Shaka had
no children to inherit his throne.
The
great Shaka was forty-two years old when he died in a most demeaning
way in Zululand. In the United States of America, 149 years later,
the great Elvis Presley died at forty-two years old, in a most
demeaning way.
For
many years after Shaka’s death, Zulus, here and there, claimed
to have bought necromantic spells and magical potions from a witch
named Lwerng.
In
modern Zululand, there are daily news items regularly of corpses
being found missing organs which, allegedly, were removed for
“traditional” cures. Witchcraft is officially recognized
in modern Zululand as included in “traditional medicines.”
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