The Fables of Power – Old grudges, new costumes, timeless quarrels

📖 The Rat Catcher of Harmelen 🐀

✍️ Introduction

Once upon a time, in the Low Countries, there came a man with spun-sugar hair and eyes that sparkled with certainty. He carried no net for rats, only a flute, and on this flute he played a single melody: “Once it was better.”

In this story, we may recognize Geert Wilders. The Rat Catcher of Harmelen retells an old Dutch legend with a modern twist. It shows how simple tunes of nostalgia and fear can still lure people down dangerous paths — and how promises that sound sweet and simple ignore the reality of the world we live in.

🎭 “The womb is fertile still from which that crept.”

— Bertolt Brecht

🪄 The Tale

He sang of a golden guilder that never lost its shine, of families that prayed the same way, ate the same stew, and never questioned the preacher’s sermons of fire and damnation.

He promised to silence the alien prayers, to ban the alien book, and to sweep the strangers from the land.

And though the bakers, the butchers, the truck drivers, the cleaners, and the builders came mostly from faraway places, the villagers listened. They nodded as if the bread would still be baked, the meat still cut, and the goods still delivered once the strangers were gone.

The Rat Catcher smiled, for he knew that the simpler the tune, the easier the march. And as the flute led them down the road of fear, none stopped to ask who would sweep the streets, staff the hospitals, or build the houses when the music was over.

And so Harmelen learned, too late, that those who follow the piper’s tune may one day find themselves in a land where the music has stopped — and the silence is unbearable.

⚖️ Moral of the Tale

A land without immigrants soon discovers that nostalgia cannot sweep the streets.

🎭 Closing Line

The stage of the world is never empty. The next fable is already being written…

🧹 Next Fable Preview

The Witch Who Wanted the Palace
A daughter of a disgraced warlock smiles sweetly and speaks softly, but her cauldron still bubbles with the old brew of fear.

📌 Blog Excerpt

In Harmelen, a piper with spun-sugar hair plays a tune of nostalgia and fear — promising golden guilders, pure families, and empty streets. But without their “strangers,” no bread would be baked, no streets swept, and no lights kept on.

WJJH, September, 2025

Leave a comment