Writers like the Grimm Brothers and Robert Browning may have shaped the Pied Piper legend into art, but it turns out the story is likely based on an actual historical incident.
(This year, we published many inspiring and amazing stories that made us fall in love with the world – and this is one our favourites. Click here for the full list).
Every working morning for the last 26 years, Michael Boyer has slipped into a pair of neon-bright, multi-coloured tights, tied on his lipstick-red cape, grabbed his flute and marched out into the medieval streets of Hamelin, a town of 60,000 residents in Lower Saxony, Germany.
People sometimes mistake me for a superhero, court jester or Robin Hood
“People sometimes mistake me for a superhero, court jester or Robin Hood,” he laughed. He’s also increasingly become an Instagram prop for tourists and, maybe in some woke eyes, a gender-fluid statement.