“Pied” was originally used in Middle English to refer to something that was “black and white like a magpie.” The word is formed from a combination of the Latin “pica” (“magpie”) and the Old English suffix “-ede.” In the legend of “The Pied Piper of Hamelin,” a piper wearing a pied coat is hired to lure the overflowing rat population away from the German town of Hamelin using his magical pipe. When the citizens refuse to pay his fee, he strikes back by luring the town’s children away instead. Various iterations of this tale appear in the writings of the Brothers Grimm and Robert Browning.