The town of Hamelin is overrun with rats when a piper comes to town as is able to remove the rats by playing his pipe. When the townsfolk refuse to pay the piper enchants their children and they follow him never to be seen again. Sound familiar? In this magical story, Weatherhill continues this scenario about what happened to the children and why. The Piper is an elf from another land who, after entering a forbidden forest and killing a white stag, is cursed. Every full moon he is turned into a beast. The curse can be past to another, but only a special child with special magic. The piper will know where to find this child because of a plague of rats. 250 years later and still living with the curse the piper is desperate when he finally discovers Hamelin. Once he enchants the children, he takes them to Elvendale to try and discover who the child is that can take his curse. But none is found and in his anger he turns all the children into animals to live in Elvendale forever. Unknown to him one child, Jakob, could not keep up as he was lame. Jakob finds away into Elvendale to find his sister Mari. Here he finds this lameness is healed, he can now run and delights in all he finds. Jakob becomes the hero of the story as he saves his sister who is now a fox, and saves the Piper. However now he is left with the curse......The story is told in 3 alternating narratives that of the Piper, Mari and Jacob. The story is a sad one, to see how the curse has embittered the Piper. I enjoyed the magic and mystery that surrounded the Piper and the history of how he came to be as he was. It is disappointing that the story does not include what the lifting of the curse means to the Piper and how his life changes particularly as there is a lot of background history to the life he left behind because of the curse. Everything ends a little too nicely for me, but happily-ever-afters are what fairy tales are all about. 6/10
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