> Perhaps the Piper, emblematic of a pagan shaman, playing his flute, was leading the youth of Hamelin to their midsummer festivities when the local Christian faction, hoping to cement conversion of the region, waylaid and massacred the group.

This passage doesn't make much sense to me, given that Saxony had been converted around 800 CE. What could "local Christian faction" even mean when everyone was (nominally) Christian?