After Hamelin

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University and an avid outdoor recreationist. She is the
author of several books, including The Mountain Is Moving: Japanese
Women’s Lives, Kurlek and Margaret Laurence: T

This extraordinary retelling of the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin
is a spiritual fable dedicated “to anyone who has ever been left
behind.”

Writer and broadcaster Bill Richardson became fascinated with the Pied
Piper legend years ago when he worked as a children’s librarian and
storyteller. In his version, this fable of loss becomes a story of
survival and triumph. His narrator is Penelope, a 101-year-old woman,
once the child the Piper left behind.

Penelope’s memory weaves past and present together as she recalls the
day of her 11th birthday when tragedy struck twice. She wakened to find
herself deaf on the day the Piper returned to claim the children of
Hamelin, his bitter revenge for the broken promises of the mayor and
council. (They refused to pay him the 500 guilders promised to him for
ridding the town of rats.)

After Hamelin blends many lessons into Richardson’s lengthy reworking
of the fable. His version shows deafness (and by extension other
handicaps) and “Deep Dreaming” as gifts, means of entering
“another country” in order to find a way out of darkness into light.
Penelope bravely enters the strange land of Deep Dreaming and returns to
triumph over the evil Piper. This fable of “Dreaming. Goodness.
Evil” is for all ages and all times. Highly recommended.