named after The Pied Piper of Hamelin, title and hero of a poem by Robert Browning d.1889, English poet. The poem recounts a German folk tale about a piper who first rids the town of Hamelin (Hameln, near Hanover) of rats, and then, when payment for this service is refused, leads away the children of the town to a nearby hill, where they disappear through a door never to be seen again