Of all my books, Wild Magic is the one with the most passionate fans. One girl wrote to me to say she had read it thirteen times, and was about to start reading it again!

I do understand. It's the kind of book I would have adored when I about twelve. I loved The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and the Narnia books. I devoured The Hobbit. So a book full of dark forests and magic and a feisty heroine would have been high on my birthday wish list!

I still love reading fantasy. I re-read The Lord of the Rings recently, and fell under its spell all over again. 

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What inspired me to write Wild Magic?

I was working in an infant school one day, telling stories to the little ones. We were acting out the story of The Pied Piper. I was the Piper; they were the children of Hamelin Town. I played a recorder and they followed me in a caterpillar line round the hall to where two children were holding hands, making an arch. 

I stopped beside the children, and told the others how the Piper played his magic pipe and a door opened in the side of Hamelin Hill. And when the children looked through the door, they saw a deep, dark cave.

Now this was something I had done a hundred times. But on this day, when I looked between the children's arms into the 'cave,' I suddenly had a thought: what's in there? I stood there, saying nothing, just looking. The kids must have thought I'd gone mad! But now I was wondering: where do they go? To my amazement, I realised I had never asked myself that question before. And of course, the legend doesn't answer it (see below)

I led the children through the arch and finished the story. But a seed had been sown... I could write the story of what happened next. At that time, I couldn't believe no one had done it already. Surely someone had? It was such a great idea! But I searched online, and couldn't find anything. My team at Puffin couldn't think of one. So I began writing!

Is The Pied Piper a true story?

The 'story' most people know is actually a poem, written by Robert Browning in 1842: The Pied Piper of Hamelin. It is Browning who introduces the lame boy who gets left behind on the hillside. This passage  particularly inspired me:

'Did I say, all? No! One was lame, 
And could not dance the whole of the way; 
And in after years, if you would blame 
His sadness, he was used to say, -- 
``It's dull in our town since my playmates left! 
I can't forget that I'm bereft 
Of all the pleasant sights they see, 
Which the Piper also promised me. 
For he led us, he said, to a joyous land, 
Joining the town and just at hand, 
Where waters gushed and fruit-trees grew, 
And flowers put forth a fairer hue, 
And everything was strange and new; 
The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here, 
And their dogs outran our fallow deer, 
And honey-bees had lost their stings, 
And horses were born with eagles' wings; 
And just as I became assured 
My lame foot would be speedily cured, 
The music stopped and I stood still, 
And found myself outside the hill, 
Left alone against my will, 
To go now limping as before, 
And never hear of that country more!''

The oldest picture of Pied Piper, copied from the glass window of Marktkirche in Goslar

But what of the older story? The legend? Is that true?

According to Radu Florescu, in his wonderful book In Search of the Piper, the following facts are true:

• The date it happened was 26 June, 1284
• An attractive young man in unfamiliar clothes, playing some sort of mouth instrument, appeared in Hamelin on or around that day
• 130 young people followed him along Drumless Street to the Eastern Gate and then disappeared at a place called Calvary
• There was at least one, if not more, witnesses who talked of the event
• Search parties were sent to look for those who had disappeared, but they were unsuccessful.

There are many theories about who the man was, and why he took the children. And the word 'children' is misleading. In the thirteenth century, a 'child' could mean anyone up to the age of twenty. So it is possible that the man took strong young teenagers to fight in the Children's Crusade, or start a new community somewhere in the Baltic. One thing is for sure - there were no rats involved! These didn't come into the story until 1559. And when I went to Hamelin, to do some research before writing the book, I was amazed to discover there was no hill! Sometime in the past, a storyteller must have invented that to make the story more more exciting. I can understand that - I do that kind of thing all the time!

Incidentally, you might notice that I never actually refer to Finn as the Pied Piper. He is either the Piper or Ratcatcher.  This is because it is only Robert Browning who calls him the Pied Piper. The older stories don't! Pied means 'two colours' - especially black and white, like a 'piebald' horse. Or a magpie! It was Browning who first introduced the famous image of the Piper wearing clothes that are half red, half yellow, and it is the Piper himself who says: 'People call me the Pied Piper.'

For more information look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pied_Piper_of_Hamelin

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