Ratcatcher.

Wonderful detail on the statue Kat.

Yes, it has more perfect details. That British artist is perfect.

Is it the Pied Piper of Hamelin? They are all wonderful sculptures.

It is! The sculptor probably refers to the current explanation of this legend.Children of Hamelin were actually youths who had been sucked into the German drive to colonize its new settlements in Eastern Europe.

That is very interesting, Katarina. I have always found the legend compulsive.

There is also a modern version of a pedofile sort of man, who lured the kids to the woods and there he slaughteréd them. Interestingly, this was again one of the popular songs in revolutionary year of 1968. The Ratcatcher:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dte9dvsWEEQ

The ratcatcher in central Europe has traditionally different image then this English version, cowl and mystrious face were conditions. This one looks like ballet master :-)

I think the English version is filtered through Browning's poem. I don't think we had an earlier version. I found it really creepy, but very interesting. The idea of the child who could not keep up and regretted it for the rest of his life really haunted me. He was the only one of his generation left! Of course, the fact that the adults had totally betrayed their children by refusing to pay the piper also had its own horror. When I first read it, I saw it all through the eyes of the children. Now I have quite a different perspective on the affair!

I do not know the story you are referring to, but those kids probably survived, in majority at least. They were led for settlement in Pomoravia (Baltic Poland region), as around 13th century, when the story about kids from Hamelin appeared, there appeared also German names in Pomoravian chronicles, which were identical with names from Hamelin. Of course, it must have been very hard, such a distance and probably the limping boy, in contrary, was the one who didn´t survive.

http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/hameln.html#browning

This is a link to the text of Browning's poem. I was not aware until now of the wealth of tradition surrounding the character of the piper.

Well, nobody knows exactly what happened with those hundreds of kids, but it must have been something dreadful, as chronicles in Hameln since that time dated all "before and after our kids were taken..."
Ratcatcher was a profession in Central and Eastern Europe for centuries, but character depicted in this balad was somebody else - recruiting new settlers probably (in Eastern Europe at that time) or children crusaders. Yes, the story is interesting. In our tradition ratcatcher was a man of an unknown face and a dark character. "He wore knife, cross and dream book behind his belt and wherever he arrived, he brought death, sorrow and tears."
Etc etc. Strong story.