You pays your money and makes your choice

Items From Norton Collection Museum, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire. Period poisons - it seems it was a very competitive market.

 

Below are the first stanzas of Browning's very famous and much longer poem:-

 

Poems of Fancy: III. Mythical: Mystical: Legendary

The Pied Piper of Hamelin

Robert Browning (1812–1889)

 

HAMELIN TOWN ’s in Brunswick,

By famous Hanover City;

The river Weser, deep and wide,

Washes its wall on the southern side;

A pleasanter spot you never spied; 5

But when begins my ditty,

Almost five hundred years ago,

To see the townsfolk suffer so

From vermin was a pity.

 

Rats! 10

They fought the dogs, and killed the cats,

And bit the babies in the cradles,

And ate the cheeses out of the vats,

And licked the soup from the cook’s own ladles,

Split open the kegs of salted sprats, 15

Made nests inside men’s Sunday hats,

And even spoiled the women’s chats,

By drowning their speaking

With shrieking and squeaking

In fifty different sharps and flats.

Done