A village in northern Spain has staged a remake of the Pied Piper of Hamelin to drive out a plague of voles that has been destroying crops across the countryside.

In a modern-day version of the 13th-century legend popularised by the Brothers Grimm, 20 people in Villotilla, Palencia, played a collection of flutes and recorders in an attempt to lure the rodents into a nearby river and their deaths.

The effort – officially called the First Flautists of Hamelin Competition – involved some of the amateur musicians dressing as makeshift Pied Pipers, while others donned masks to transform themselves into voles for a day.

Rural northern Spain has been stricken this year by millions of voles that have devastated crops and threaten to invade vineyards, public parks and even towns.

The common vole (Microtus arvalis) is native to northern Spain. Most of the population dies in the region’s bitter winters, but they survived this year, which was unusually ice-free, then flourished in the rainy spring that followed.

The pipers of Villotilla faced a jury who pronounced on their musical abilities, but the acid test was if they could prove they had charmed any voles into the water and their deaths. There was no evidence that any voles had thrown themselves into the river during the contest.

Many villagers, such as Bonifacio Machin, had no musical pretensions. “I don’t know how to play the flute, but I thought I should do something to help these people end this plague of voles,” he said. Others, such as 86-year-old Teodoro León and his sister Lucila, who were dressed in gold, curly wigs and played a drum made out of an old washing machine tub, appeared to be along for the fun.

Players from the nearby village of Villamuriel won the judges’ approval with their appropriately named number I Was Mr Cat. But the winners were two groups from the villages of Venta de Baños and Baños de Cerrato, who won a trip to Valladolid to explain to farmers how they had done their bit to fight the voles.

In a more serious effort to deal with the problem, farmers have demanded massive doses of poison to exterminate the voles. Some protests have turned violent. In July hundreds of angry farmers carrying live voles broke into the offices of the local authorities in Valladolid and threatened to release the animals inside. Police charged and scattered the demonstrators.

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