A series of pictures and factoids for Create's NaJoPoMo Challenge.

It's all about socio-economics.

If you ride the train along the Rhine, you'll pass this tower at Bingen. And some local person will ask you if you know the story. Pretend you don't. It's more fun that way. You'll get their version, you'll pass the time, and you might make a friend.

There was this bishop, you see. Name of Hatto. (They had weird names back in the 10th Century, Cologne's was named Anno.) Hatto was a greedy character. He used that tower as a fort for crossbowmen, and held up ships for 'toll'. Hatto was in the protection racket, big-time.

When governments do it, it's called a tariff.

As the story goes, there was a famine, and Hatto had cornered the grain market. He stored it in – you guessed it. Anyhow, he promised to distribute grain at a big barn outside of town. The townspeople showed up. He locked them in and set fire to the barn.

I don't believe that part, because it's what you call a topos. Jehu did it in the Bible. An old book claims Vlad Tepes did that to his political enemies. You'd think by now that nobody would enter a large building under those circumstances.

Anyway, the story goes on to tell that Hatto, hearing the cries of his helpless victims, joked, 'Hear the mice squeak!' Whereupon he entered the Twilight Zone. A horde of mice pursued him to his palace. He took refuge in the Tower, thinking they could not swim.

As anyone familiar with the Great transnistria Hamster Migration knows, rodents can, too, swim. The mice allegedly devoured Hatto in his stronghold. One idea is that, well, there was a famine, the grain was stored on the island, and mice can swim. Hungry mice ate the grain. Maybe hungry mice ate the bishop. I hope that part is true. I hate gangsters.

Whatever happened, that place is called the Mouse Tower, or Mäuseturm. And if you ride past it on the train or a boat, somebody will tell you about it.

Enjoy their version. Or make up your own.