The Rats of Hamelin: A Piper's Tale (Moody Publishers, 2005) is a historical fantasy/fairy tale fantasy novel by Adam McCune and Keith McCune. Gachi-Changjo Publishing Company published a Korean translation entitled 6월 26일, 하멜른 (June 26, Hamelin) in 2007. Set in medieval Germany, the story is based on the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. In this version, however, the Pied Piper is not an expert in magic piping, but an eighteen-year-old apprentice named Hannes (Johannes) who is supposed to kill the rats as his final exam before becoming a Master Piper. Everything seems to go wrong. Someone is trying to keep the rats in Hamelin—someone with powers like Hannes’s. Hannes had hoped to buy his father’s freedom with the reward, but the Town Council has stolen every penny of the fund and is against Hannes from the beginning. Even the mayor’s daughter, with whom Hannes has fallen in love, seems to think he is getting in the way. In the end, Hannes has to overcome the Town Council, his mysterious enemy, and himself. History The Rats of Hamelin is set mostly in the year 1284. At this time, Germany was the Holy Roman Empire, a group of dukedoms loosely united under an emperor. That is why there is talk of involving the Duke of Braunschweig (Brunswick) when a capital crime is committed. In the backstory of the novel is the Children's Crusade of 1212. This really took place, and the fictional character of the Old Woman of Aerzen is like many real parents who lost their children. The German cities of Hamelin, Aerzen, (Hessisch-)Oldendorf, and Koeln (Cologne) are real cities, although there may not have been manors with serfs near Aerzen and Oldendorf, and Koeln is not known to have housed a Piper's Guild. The Pied Piper himself seems to have some historical basis, and is thus a figure of history as well as legend. The Lueneberg Manuscript of 1450, which serves as an epigraph for the novel, sums up the little we know historically about him: "In the year 1284, on the days of John and Paul, the 26th of June, a piper clothed in various colors came and led away 130 children born in Hamelin to Calvary on the Koppen." Fantasy Hannes is trained in magical piping by the Piper's Guild. Like other medieval guilds, the Piper's Guild allows workers of one trade to help support