Secret of the Pied Piper? Valerian? Who Knew? "Valerian has an effect on the nervous system of many animals, especially cats, which seem to be thrown into a kind of intoxication by its scent. It is scarcely possible to keep a plant of Valerian in a garden after the leaves or root have been bruised or disturbed in any way, for cats are at once attracted and roll on the unfortunate plant. It is equally attractive to rats and is often used by rat-catchers to bait their traps. It has been suggested that the famous Pied Piper of Hamelin owed his irresistible power over rats to the fact that he secreted Valerian roots about his person."→[More:]

I'm lucky to have a number of shops nearby that sell all sorts of natural herbs and spices (like really natural, like people in the mountains pick 'em, and we get 'em), so I picked up some valerian, just because I'd never tried valerian tea, and thought it might be nice to have on hand for nervousness or sleeplessness. So I looked it up on the wonderful botanical.com and found the connection with the Pied Piper story. Cool.

By the way, the story is not, evidently, just a fairy tale as I had always thought. Apparently, back in 1284, something happened to the children of Hamelin, and persistent legend has them turning up later in Transylvania. So put that in your Halloween pipe and smoke it.