Fun Facts

Everybody loves turkey, they eat in religious events, a good little sandwich and many more delicious ways. It all started in 1519, Hernando Cortez returned to Spain after traveling around in Mexico, the native “Indians” introduced him to a bird. He told the European world about the bird, the French named it after the Indians, Dindon (which means pouletes d’ Inde). Although the Germans, Dutch and Swedes called it Kilcon after the bird from Calcutta (Indian city). By the time the English heard of it, the bird was supposedly from Turkey.

So basically nobody at the time knew from where the bird was, the names were different for each country.

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Bedtime stories galore across the world. It is quite common that the young kids are told many fairy tales in their childhood by the elderly people, mostly the grannies, and even mothers, with a primary intention of creating some interest to the children to follow some noble virtues and also for the sake of fun. Most bedtime stories are told to make the child sleep or to make them feel happy.

While many stories are mere fantasies just said to inculcate some good habits among the children, some of the stories do have some reference to the past and are not mere fantasies and do have some historical background, claim the historians and archeologists, having uncovered some startling facts.

One such story, which is very popular among the kids, is that of the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

The story, as told to the children, is something as follows.

There existed in the city of Hamelin a situation where each and every house has a number of rats. The residents had a tough time dealing with innumerable rats running around all places of the house and around all houses across the city. People were worried how to get rid of those rats. Then came a person, with colored clothes and a pipe in his hand. Seeing the plight of the people, the pied piper promised to cure the problem. He took the pipe, and played a tune that literally mesmerized the rats and made them follow the piper. The piper, intelligently, kept of playing the music and made the rats follow him wherever he goes. He led the rats to the top of the mountain and stood at the corner of the mountain, while continuing to play the music. The rats, mesmerized by the music, followed him, and eventually fell from the top of the mountain to the river flowing beneath and died. Thus, the pied piper eventually saved the people of Hamelin from the menace of the rats.

In reality, there did exist a Pied Piper in Hamelin. But, what he did is not killed the rats by drowning them in the river. In reality, the Pied Piper took away around 100 children from the city as an act of vengeance. It was not a happy event for the citizens of Hamelin but a sorrow one as their children were driven away by the Pied Piper.

An inscription found in the stained-glass window at a church in the German town of Hamelin has evidence to this traumatic event, according to archeologists and historians.

The inscription read thus: “In the year 1284, on the day of John and Paul, it was the 26th of June, came a colorful piper to Hamelin and led 130 children away.”

Historians feel that the story of Pied Piper of Hamelin driving away the rats might be a folk memory of the traumatic incident.

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Most of us would have heard about many bed time stories in our childhood days that not only provided the fun and fantasy, but also provided us with some sort of inspiration to us.

One of such stories is about “Robert the Bruce.” We were told this inspirational story to get encouraged and not feel disheartened at the stroke of failure.

The essence of the story is something like this.

There lived a King by name Robert the Bruce. He waged battle against a rather bigger opponent and could not succeed in winning over the opponent. But, he did not lose heart and kept on recouping himself and make attempts to conquer over the opponent. Not once or twice, but as many as 12 times he attempted to win over the opponent. Having dejected at failed attempts, Robert, one day took shelter in a cave or something of that, cursing his ill-fate over failure to win over the attempt. There, while pondering over the repeated failures, he happened to look at a spider at a corner, attempting to climb through the cave well. Every time the spider tried to climb up, it fell down. However, the spider did not lose heart and attempted to climb. After as many as 12 failures, the spider, without losing heart and filled with determination, climbed up again and finally succeeded in climbing through the cave well. Robert Bruce was watching all the failed attempts of the spider as well as the final success at the 13th attempt. This act by spider gave him fresh motivation, and Robert Bruce broke through the shackles of dejection, attempted for the 13th time, and tasted success.

The moral of the story is nothing but TRY, TRY AND TRY AGAIN.

Do you know who told this story for the first time in the Universe?

This story was first narrated by Sir Walter Scott in the year 1828 as one of the stories in his book “Tales of a Grandfather”. The year 1828 was exactly 500 years later, when Robert the Bruce fought for the independence of Scottish people from the English rule. Historical evidence uncovered about the Douglas family about 200 years after the actual war took place between Robert Bruce against the English rule provide important clues about the motivational story which we were told by our grandparents.

Sir James Douglas was a close friend of Robert Bruce and it was he who encouraged the King not to lose heart and keep trying. The very words uttered by Sir James Douglas to Robert, found by the archeologists, are as follows : “ I spied a spider climbing by his web to the height of an trie and at 12 attempts I perceived his web broke. But the 13 time he climbed up that trie”.

Sir Scott Walter, according to historians and archeologists, could have taken these words of Sir James Douglas to tell the story for motivating people and children in particular, in his story book titled – Tales of a Grandfather.

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