Meet the Pied Piper of Hamlyn
Sure enough, he is.
His name is Christian Garbe, 39, and he's a professional musician and a piano constructor who plays the Piper in his spare time.
As the brightly attired man with the huge feather in his cap puts his lips to his flute, we know why the children of Hamlyn followed him out of the town, singing and dancing, never to return.
"Hamlyn," our piper explains, punctuating his paragraphs with hypnotic bursts of music from his flute,"was an ancient Saxon settlement, dating back to the eighth century. The city, known for its rich merchant inhabitants, frequently changed hands, passing to Hanover in 1814 and to Prussia in 1866. It has retained many historic buildings, including a 14th century Gothic church, and a 16th century wedding house, now the City Hall."
Most of these, he continues ruefully, were bombed and destroyed and rebuilt painstakingly after the Second World War.
His flute is eerily silent as we go past the Rattenkrug or Pied Piper's House, and on to the Bungelosenstrasse, (or drum-less street) a lane where singing and music is banned under a long-established law in memory of the children who disappeared.
According to Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, 'In total, one hundred thirty were lost. Two, as some say, had lagged behind and came back. One of them was blind and the other mute.'
"In 1968, a total restoration of the old town centre was started and which was finally completed in 1992." explains Garbe.