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The Lost Children of Hamlin
Somerset Belenoff appears to have an unusual connection to the German town of Hamlin (Hameln in German). If the name sounds familiar it may be that you've heard it mentioned in the legend of the Pied Piper, who is alleged to have led away all of the village's children over 700 years ago. Every year, on June 26, a post appears on the Glamis Calling blog to commemorate the Hamlin tragedy. It may seem touching or even sweet, the idea of a 65 year old woman who believes in the terrible legend and is moved to post a comment on her blog to remind the world that children are precious and we must never let something like this happen again. But when you actually view the post and listen to the audio it isn't touching at all. It's really, really creepy. Instead of a message of comfort, the posts may be better interpreted as a condemnation of the parents who allowed their children to be taken. Worse, one gets the feeling that Belenoff may be mocking the village. Why emphasize parental negligence in a case that happened 700 years ago, if it happened at all?

Like so many things surrounding Somerset Belenoff, the real story behind her connection to Hamlin and the Pied Piper is an enigma, but it is interesting to note that according to the late Peter Graham (Led Zeppelin's manager) the song Stairway to Heaven is about Belenoff and includes references to her that were well-known to people in the London art and music scene. We mention this here because the song also includes the words, "the Piper's calling you to join him." (an obvious reference to her connection to the Pied Piper of Hamlin) Graham told Melody Maker that the lyrics about the May Queen refers directly to Belenoff and that she is the "Lady" who is buying the stairway to heaven. In the 1960s Belenoff was known informally within the London art scene as "The May Queen," most likely because May 1st is her birthday and she was known as a sort of magical, carefree, regal person.

On June 26, 2017, the image on the right appeared on Glamis Calling, along with an audio file and the words, "It is 733 years since our children left." This is likely in reference to an entry, written over 600 years ago in the village church records that simply says, "It is 100 years since our children left."

Obviously Belenoff is intimately familiar with the legend and the early church records that mention the exodus of the children, but the reason for her intense interest is not known. In the audio file attached to the post, you can hear the echoed voices of children laughing and suddenly crying, sounds of pigs grunting and squealing, men shouting in German and demons wailing. Given Somerset Belenoff's occult leanings, one wonders if she has somehow reached through the ages and captured, however imperfectly, the sounds of what happened on that fateful day more than 700 years ago. You'll have to visit GlamisCalling.org to enjoy the complete experience because we were not able to download her audio.
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Assault on Golden Dawn Sorcerers - Hampstead, England, 1969

Always critical of Aleister Crowley and his associates, Belenoff is said to have referred to Crowley's Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn as "The Pathetic Order of the Golden Yawn." In the summer of 1969 she  was introduced to former Crowley colleagues in what turned out to be a sort of sorcery showdown that brought about the destruction of the Resurrected Order. Led Zeppelin manager Peter Grant recounted this story to the weekly British music magazine Melody Maker:

"Well, I knew the Countess when she was 16 years old, before she was a Countess and before the whole, Wettin, World Governing Council stuff. She was one of the beautiful young people who orbited the rock and roll scene back in the 60s and we were a pretty rough lot. She was called Lilibet back then, sort of a nickname for Elizabeth, which is actually her first name. At first we thought, you know, she's the Queen's cousin, she's beautiful and we like having her around, but you know, we have to look after her, you know, protect her from some of these predatory gorillas around us... She'd go away to school in China, she was majoring in Mathematics, already at university, really advanced for her age. Or she'd leave for a few weeks up to Glamis or to Clarence House (in London) and then she'd pop back into our lives every couple of months and you know she and Jimmy (Page) used to have these friendly occult challenges where they'd sit across from each other and see who could make the other person's chair fall over. Silly games like that, and I remember one thing she could do that Jimmy could not is she could actually, literally drop the temperature in the room."
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"One day we all went up to Hampstead where some of Jimmy's Golden Dawn associates had a big old spooky house. These geezers were former students of Aleister Crowley and they had a new magical circle called The Resurrected Circle of the Golden Dawn or some such shite, and Jimmy wanted to introduce them to Lilibet (Belenoff). Well we get there and there's this intense feeling of dread and darkness, like pure evil in the house and it didn't seem right to bring a young girl to such a place. So introductions were made and we all sat around in chairs like in a circle and she and Jimmy and these 3 old geezers start doing the challenge thing like she used to do with Jimmy. And she and Jimmy had always been about equal in their abilities, you know. Now these old guys were like real old school evil sorcerers and straight away they start moving their hands around in the air and you can see Lilibet's chair start to shake. Like I said, Jimmy and I were both very like, protective of Lilibet so we were feeling pretty bad about how this was starting to go down, you know. Like it was supposed to be a friendly competition but these guys were taking it to another level. Then one of the guys starts making gestures with his right hand like in a choking motion and pointing it toward Lilibet's throat, and you can see it's having an effect on her.

So Jimmy and I both decide to get up from our chairs and end this but we can't move! We can't stand up and we can't even move our hands! At first when they did this, you can see Lilibet's face and she has a shocked look but then she relaxes and she gets a smile on her face, like, 'ah, she's regained control' and at the same time the old sorcerer geezers are getting more agitated and gesturing more intensely. The other thing everyone notices is it's starting to feel really f...ing cold in the house. Now you have to remember, it's the middle of July and it's one of those hot muggy London nights, but now all of a sudden it's getting really, really cold. It's not like before when Lilibet used to drop the temperature in the room when she and Jimmy were just fooling around with the occult. This was like, Siberia f....ing cold, and it's getting worse, colder and colder still. And then the old geezers started complaining, 'I can't feel my hands!' Every window and everything made of glass has frost one it now and we can all see our breath  - except Lilibet. She appeared to be totally relaxed and no visible frosty breath coming out of her mouth. As it gets even colder the old guys are starting to panic but they are unable to get up from their chairs. Then Lilibet gets a look of complete satisfaction on her face and she stands up and throws her arms into the air and at that very moment, everything made of glass explodes. The crystal in my watch, the spectacles of the old sorcerer sitting on my left, absolutely beautiful, century old stained glass windows, every piece of china in the house, which has been frozen, just explodes in this loud, very violent eruption. One of the old sorcerers had a glass eye and it was just awful to see what happened to it. The old geezer that had been making the choking motions with his right hand had been complaining that he couldn't feel his hands ... and I swear to Christ as I sit here, the bones inside his f---ing hand shattered. Shattered as though they had been made of glass, and his hand was just a bloody pulp. And understand, all of this happened within seconds of Lilibet standing up and throwing her hands into the air. It was like she broke her own spell and shattered everything that had frozen.
Then two other things happened at the same time. The room became warm again immediately after everything shattered or exploded, and at the same moment, the radio in the corner of the room came on and started playing that song by The Lovin' Spoonful, "Do you believe in magic, in a young girl's heart...". Then Lilibet does a little spin and a bow with this innocent smile and as she leans down over the old sorcerer with the shattered hand and the one with the shattered glass eye she says, "That, gentlemen, is the way we do it up at Glamis!" The geezer with the shattered hand, his skin is a bloody pulp with sharp bones shattered inside is screaming at Lilibet and saying, "You've destroyed my hand you dirty she-devil!!" and Lilibet says to him, "Maybe you should remember this the next time you try to strangle a young girl."
After that I realized Lilibet's occult abilities had progressed far, far beyond anything we had imagined and she didn't need anyone's protection. Later we asked her where she had learned such powerful sorcery and she said, from her friends within the walls of Glamis Castle.

Several months later she and I were driving together and my car broke down in a really dangerous, dodgy part of London and Lilibet said to me, "Don't worry Peter, I won't let anything happen to you." That's 25 years ago and to me, to all of us who knew her then, she's still sweet Lilibet.
 - Peter James Grant (5 April 1935 – 21 November 1995) Led Zeppelin's Manager in interview with Melody Maker