HAMELIN IN THE DISTANCE

HAMELIN IN THE DISTANCE, by Maria Schrater, with audio by the writer

 

 

My fiddle will not tune right, and my bow is prone to breaking

I am a poor musician whom all melody has forsaken

I used to while away the hours telling lays of kings and towers,

Dragons, rings, unearthly powers—enough to make a village sing—

But as I played long winding roads, all in my kit of red and woad

A piper ran me off the road

Two hundred children followed close

Their eyes filmed over, white as bone, mouths agape, too far from home

Worn feet stumble-danced in time, leaving reddish smears behind

They’d come from mountain passes high

The snowy peaks, where small things die, where

Grass won’t grow and panther prowls, where magic howls

Inside the winds

 

No human thing was this pied player.

 

And though I am a lowly creature, some courage forced me then to linger

I’d played for children such as these, their pennies filled my belly

With soups and meats, a bed to sleep—in life,

You pay back what you can, with music or with swords

 

“Ho, piper!” cried I, with shaking knees,

“Release the children, villain, heed! Their parents all must be aggrieved—

You’ll starve the rest of us, you see, (your costume looks a lot like me)

You’ll put us out of bread and cheese. Have you no heart?

Besides, disease!

These ones look sick! You’ll catch your death

Or dance them down to their last breath, and feeding vultures

Is not your intent, I must assume:

That’s a job for knights and kings, we only sing of deeds like these.”

 

Piper stopped astonished, paused his playing, gaily said,

“Hamelin tried to cheat me, thought they could usurp my fee,

Tried to lie and cry and beat me, prevail upon my pity,

Tried a thousand tricks to bind me, tried to take my pipe away

Tried to set their dogs upon me, tried pitchforks, tried parlay,

Tried to burn me, tried to drown me when I came to take my fee,

The lovely golden florins, so many owed to me

For I rid them of their rats, and all their plague-fed fleas,

And I rid them of their mice, and their terrible diseases

I rid them of their locusts, to make the crops grow strong

I rid them of their problems with the power of my song

 

Fiddler, have you been cheated by the wits of greedy men?

Have you been chased by honest folk (leastways, that’s what they ken)?

Have you been robbed and beaten, have you been booed down and cheated?

Then do not deny me vengeance against these villagers, these fools!

I saved their lives a thousand times, but now I take their future

The progeny they want to see follow in their footsteps

I make them follow mine! I’d drown them in the river

If the naiads would’ve let me, but they’re still picking rat fur

From the reeds and rocks and currents, so they sent me off

To forest, and to glen and thorns and fen,

Where I’ll toss them to the tree-folk, to the pixies, to the hungry,

To the bears and wolves and Red Caps, to the elemental jaws—”

 

My expression gave him pause, or he might’ve stopped for breath

Regardless, I replied, “Piper, though your cause

Is not without some merit, I maintain I will not have it!

You cannot take a hundred children, nor a dozen, not a one.

You say your song enchants them? Perhaps song will break your spell

I will play my fiddle louder than your reeds could ever blow

I will sing a song undoing all your mischief, all their woe

I will take them from you, Piper, I will save their foolish lives—”

 

Piper laughs and interrupts me, “You’re in for a surprise!

Though another time I’d duel you, see which playing is more sweet

I have business to attend to,

Thus I curse you:

Feet, be still!

Forget your dance-steps, forget the pound of heel and toe

Forget the twists and turns, Tongue, forget your songs!

Forget the tunes and twirls of them, forget the words of tales

May they all elude you—and one more! Fiddle, bend no more.

Bow, break and splinter, strings, do not be tuned

Caterwaul when cheer is called, bray beneath the moon.”

 

I tried to strike up merry tunes to push away his curse

But words are potent powers. My fiddle-strings snapped first

When I pushed a little harder, my bow it creaked and bent

The horsehairs frayed and wheezes made, until I stood and wept.

In horror numb he left me, let the children trail behind

When he’d vanished in the distance, I think I lost my mind.

 

A thousand, thousand remedies I tried to no avail

Begged my way from town to town, growing thin and pale

Dragged my fiddle as I dragged my legs, the cursed thing

dead weight.

 

I gave two bloody pints to a witch to set me right,

I gave my hair to pixies’ nests to take away my plight

I gave three teeth to naiad, to a dryad gave an eye

Desperation drove me to the Nokken by the by

 

The Nokken is a fiddler, like the man I used to be

But his singing is malicious just as much as it is sweet

By the rivers he croons melodies to lure humans to him

Sometimes he just wants dancing, other times he drags them in

There’s no guarantee I’ll live if I go to Nokken’s falls,

But I’m starving and I’m limping, and the others failed me all

So, I steel my heart and thieve some things to sacrifice that night—

I’ve naught left but my hands and feet, and they I need be right.

 

In tattered rags I stumble where the water runs o’er hills,

Down the craggy rock-face the river chatters as it spills

Moss grows thick and fast in all the places it can reach

The pool below is deep and clear, and I see bones beneath

I grip my gifts to Nokken tight and step into the sands

My blood, and rum in one hand, in the other, bound by bands

A rooster dark as deepest earth crows fierce and tries to peck

I wade deeper in the shallows, break black rooster’s neck

Then toss my gifts into the depths and hope he’ll heed my beck

 

Nokk, he comes out naked (I’ve caught him by surprise)

His skin is freckled golden, and bright blue are his eyes

His hair is dark and dripping, and his smile is white as foam

The gleaming fiddle in his hands dries my mouth like bone

“What brings you here?” the Nokken asks, his fingers graze my cheek

“Your gifts to me are sweet, and will make me quite the feast

I must repay your blood and bones with power of my own

For that’s the way of Faerieland, the laws of my wild home.”

 

“Nokken, one has cursed me, bound my music and my melody

He played a pipe of magic deep and Hamelin’s children all has reaped

No other magic broke my plight, but your magic is like his

They say to give you blood and rum beneath a harvest moon

They say to give you sacrifice of animals of darkest hue

They say if you win favor with the Nokken in his den

The Nokken must instruct you how to play his fiddle then

So, tell me plainly, creature, can you take away this curse?

Can you take away the mischief, and my ill fortune reverse?

I’ve sacrificed so many things, I’ve lost my chance to play for kings

To win applause and golden rings, just for saying stop to him.”

 

“The piper?” Nokken cried, and cunning curved his cheeks,

“I know him well, and know you this: your sacrifice’s not meet

There’s more to breaking curses than to teaching men to play.”

I hung my head, but then he said, “Don’t fret, there’s still a way.

The piper, he’s my rival going down the centuries

While I am bound to water, he goes skipping with his melodies

The choicest meals he’s stealing and my stomach’s growing lean.

I’ll give you back your powers if you bring his tongue to me.”

Such horrors would’ve wilted fast the will of lesser men

But I had staked too much on this—

“I will,” is what I said.

 

The Nokken’s brows drew inward as he summoned up his power

He handed me his fiddle and withdrew to his wet bower

An instrument of bone it was, all carved with scenes of grief

But it sang sweetly in my hands and gave me deep relief

 

I turned from lying will-o-wisps in marshes’ squelching mud

Marched through dragon-blasted heaths with blemishes of blood

Finally, a mountainside where wind howled sobs and moans

When I approached the cave-mouth, I tripped on human bones

Femurs, skulls, and shattered ribs ringed Piper’s freezing home

Too late for Hamelin’s children—I could not grieve, just go

He melted out of shadow, still in his bright pied clothes

 

“Ho, piper!” cried I with furious mien

“I’ve come for vengeance, villain, heed!

My songs you took and mind you reaved,

I’ve chased you down to make you bleed.”

 

He laughed aloud like the bells a-tinkling on his cap

“You’ve spirit for a mortal, but it matters not a whit.”

“I may be mortal, Piper, but I’ll outmatch your wit.”

His eyes harden like shale-stone, like the backs of beetle’s wings

He produces polished pipes, grim faces carved to sing

The remnants of his murders, twisted into weaponry

“You look familiar, fiddling fool, I’ve beaten you before.

You’ve come crawling from the midden to drool before my door.”

“No more! You wyrm of envy, wretched predator, foul boor!

I have a question for you before I even out our score.

For once you did the same to me, and eye for eye I swore.

 

“Piper, has your stomach burned with hunger on the road?

Have you drunk from silty puddles to quench your parched throat?

Have you slept beneath the stormclouds without a penny to your name?

Have you lusted after fortune, chased senseless after fame?

Or did you only go to Hamelin for the fresh meal that you craved?

Did the tree-folk take them, Piper, did the pixies, did the hungry,

Did the bears and wolves and Red Caps, did the elemental jaws?

Or did you crack their bones for marrow, did you tear their throats agape?

While they stood dumb from spellwork, did you wrench their limbs away?

 

I plucked my eye out for a song, I’ll blind myself for vengeance

I’ll wear my tongue to air to tear yours bloody from the root

You should’ve listened when I begged you, ‘Let the children go.’

For I am wielding magic only evil could bestow. So!

 

Shatter, pipes, and turn to dust

Like victims you have claimed

Turn back to raided corpses and

Go singing to the grave

One more note! The cry of battered souls

Whose voices were betrayed

Now splinter into tuneless shards

Await the end of days.”

 

Piper stumbled at the crack and groan of breaking bones

His pipes split down the middle, gleaming sharp upon the snow

And as he fell onto his knees, I heard the Nokk’s decree

“I’ll give you back your music if you bring his tongue to me.”

My ears awash with memory, I lifted bone-pipe splinters

I tore his tongue with one hand, his heart out with the other.

With bloody hands I gripped my bow, with blood the strings did gleam

 

If I gave the tongue to Nokken, my bargain’d be complete

But the fiddle had awoken, crooning violence, beckoning

Hunger keened inside its body and came crawling up my spine

I could take its tainted magic, make Piper’s power mine

If I devoured Piper’s tongue, it said, I’d be divine

 

Raw flesh slid slickly down my throat, smoother than fine wine

 

Hunger latches in my stomach, bloodlust searing through my mind

Only one thing now could sate me, and towards it I turn my eyes

Down the mountain slopes I saw the faintest curl of chimney smoke

And with each stinging, freezing breath my appetite awoke

I start on down the cliff-path leaving Piper dead in snow

Playing ancient melody—towards Hamelin-town I go.

 

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Maria Schrater is a writer & poet based in Chicago. Her work can be found in Apparition Lit, Sycorax Journal, Abyss & Apex, and in several projects from Air & Nothingness Press. She is also Poetry Editor for Apparition Literary Magazine and an associate SFWA member. She especially loves folklore and mythology and often works with retellings. When not writing, she can be found imitating bird calls in the woods. You can find her on Twitter @MariaSchrater or on her website mariaschrater.com.