Novel
The Pied Piper
Krysař
Viktor Dyk · 1911
Synopsis
A stranger with a flute arrives in Hamelin, a Hanseatic town overrun by rats, and offers to rid it of them. He falls in love with Agnes, a young woman of the town, and dreams with her of another life; but the councillors go back on the promised price, the burghers show their pettiness, and the dream cracks. Apart from everyone, a poor fisherman, Sepp Jörgen, lives his simple life on the edge of the town.
Context
The novella first appeared as a serial in the weekly Lumír, in 1911 and 1912, under the title Pravdivý příběh, “A True Story”, and took the title Krysař only in volume form, in 1915, in the Zlatokvět series. The author freely reworks the old Saxon legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, as a mere framework. Jiří Barta made it into an animated film with wooden puppets, which follows his version for the most part.
Who it is for
A short novella, 122 pages in the Karolinum edition. It can be read in French under the title Le Chasseur de rats, and in English under the title The Pied Piper.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the pinnacle of his prose and his best-known work; it is through this book that most Czechs know the legend.