[Grumbledour]

It's "Rattenfänger von Hameln" in german, so the literal translation would be "Rat-Catcher of Hamelin".

I do remember him wearing brightly colored patchwork clothing in the stories, but I could not say if that was an integral part of the original fable or just added in retellings to make the character stand out more as a mysterious stranger.

[b2ccb2]

Here is a picture on Wikipedia. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rattenf%C3%A4nger_von_Hameln#/...

I grew up around Hameln and can confirm, that is how he is depicted.

Also a depiction of him from 1592: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rattenf%C3%A4nger_von_Hameln#/...

So it is part of the fable.

[IncreasePosts]

Was that kind of garb common back then? Reminds me of Swiss guard uniforms(granted, developed in the early 20th c, but based off 16th century imagery)

[b2ccb2]

Not sure, the costume reminds me of a jester. If I'd take a jab at it, here is the original transcription from Brüder Grimm:

"Im Jahr 1284 ließ sich zu Hameln ein wunderlicher Mann sehen. Er hatte einen Rock von vielfarbigem, bunten Tuch an, weshalben er Bundting soll geheißen haben, und gab sich für einen Rattenfänger aus…"[0][1]

"In the year 1284, a strange man appeared in Hameln. He had a skirt, made from differently colored fabrics, which is why his name was 'bundle(?)', pretending to be a rat catcher…"

[0] https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Seite:Deutsche_Sagen_(Grimm)_... [1] https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Seite:Deutsche_Sagen_(Grimm)_...

[gsf_emergency_4]

Someone needs to work on the wiki etymology.. (not saying it's wrong, just that there seems to be a story missing there that connects 1 & 2 :)

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bunting#English

[bluGill]

It would not surprise me. Clothing took a lot of labor to make. A large part of the labor was women's labor which history doesn't record much of. When you are doing that much effort it isn't that much more to die in bright colors, and people like colorful clothing (some like the Amish make non-color part of their identity of course, but they like colors they are just rejecting them anyway because they think that helps them get to heaven). Colors were limited to what they could make so probably not as bright as modern, but not dark in general.

[WalterBright]

> A large part of the labor was women's labor which history doesn't record much of

Women spent much of their lives making textiles. It likely wasn't recorded much because it was so ubiquitous.

For example, my family photographs when I was growing up were nearly all about documenting unusual events, like birthdays, holidays, and vacations. The humdrum ordinary things were not photographed. For example, there was only two photos with the family car incidentally in the frame. No photographs of the neighborhood. One photo of the school I attended. No pictures of my dad at work. No pictures of my mom cleaning the house. And so on.

It gives a fairly skewed vision of life then.

[bluGill]

That too, but we know more about men's work that was just as ubiquitous. Though the vast majority of history is about those in charge - the 0.0001%.

[WalterBright]

> the 0.0001%

The ones who can read and write expect to be paid, and the wealthy and powerful will commission them to write about what interests the wealthy and powerful - i.e. themselves.

This state of affairs persisted until the advent of the printing press, which made for a mass market of ordinary people.

[AlotOfReading]

Bright colors fade more noticeably over time, so bright clothing was a good indication of new, regularly replaced clothing. The dyes themselves could also be phenomenally expensive. The scarlet red of Catholic cardinals was historically made from Kermes, an especially lightfast dye. Kermes was in turn a cheaper alternative to the Tyrian Purple worn previously.

Daily clothing would have been more pastel than the saturated colors we associate with "colorful" today.