Did The Pied Piper Take The Hamelin Children To A Magical Paradise? Or A Deceptive Prison, Like Pleasure Island??????????

                             Both 'The Pied Piper' and "Pinocchio" prominently feature the letter "P," but they have more than that in common.  In both tales, children are lured to faraway places; in "Pinocchio," Pleasure Island gradually evolves into something bogus, but, with the way things pass through my mind, even at this time, I began wondering about the Hamelin story.

                             As a child, I saw, on TV, in black and white, the movie version of this story, most likely the one starring Van Johnson.  At the climax, he took the kids to the foot of a mountain, which, with the magic of special effects and rear projection, parted, to reveal, a wondrous, magical place, which the kids were eager to ditch their parents, and provincial homes, for.  They poured into the place in droves, without a care in the world.  When the last child enters, the piper follows, turns to the outside world, and the mountain closes up, trapping all inside.

                              So, are the children narcotized within a pleasure palace forever?  Or is something more horrible in store, once the mountain closes?  "Pinocchio" makes things clear.  The 'Pied Piper' is more ambiguous.  Some, I have read, have seen this as an interpretation of death.  But is the death actually pleasant, or is it more sinister, and punishing?????????????

                              I favor the idea that the children spent their time in a wonderful, magical place. This was the price paid for the parents' selfishness and greed, in refusing to pay the piper.  Why should the children suffer for that?  So, I believe, that, while, yes, they were taken away, it was to a magical, fun place, enabling them to forget what came before.

                               For me, personally, that magical place would be Jenkinson's Boardwalk, in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, during the 1960's.

                               Disney was not the first, darlings, to give childhood a dark tinge!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!