1960's "Made in Japan" litho tinplate toy trumpet that requires no skill to play

"NEW" condition unsold stock from a long-ago closed-down toy store

SIZE = almost 16" long so the postage is a little costly due to NZPO size restrictions

LAST ONE LEFT

The Pied Piper of Hamelin is the subject of a legend from the town of Hamelin (Hameln), Lower Saxony, Germany, in the Middle Ages

The earliest references describe a piper, dressed in multicolored ("pied") clothing, who was a rat-catcher hired by the town to lure rats away with his magic pipe

When the citizens refuse to pay for this service, he retaliates by using his instrument's magic power on their children, leading them away as he had the rats

This version of the story spread as folklore and has appeared in the writings of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the Brothers Grimm, and Robert Browning, among others

The Pied Piper is also sometimes thought to have been, or associated with, the Norse God Odin, or the Anglo-Saxon variant Woden

There are many contradicting theories about the Pied Piper

Some have been proposed suggesting he was a symbol of hope to the people of Hamelin, which had been attacked by plague; he moved all the rats out from the town of Hamelin, thus saving the people from the epidemic disease

The earliest known record of this story is from the town of Hamelin itself, depicted in a stained glass window created for the church of Hamelin, which dates to around 1300 AD. Although it was destroyed in 1660, several written accounts have survive