„We’ll find something better than death no matter where we go!“ Why did the four City Musicians in the Grimms’ fairy-tale want to move to Bremen, of all places? Could they not have chosen a different, a better city in which to find their feet? But they never actually arrived here. Which is some consolation. Though they certainly could have presented a shrill melody for many a paunchy burgher here. For occasionally, Hanseatic staidness can strike back with a vengeance, especially when it’s a matter of holding on to the all too familiar.

Quite unlike the „Seven Lazy Men,“ the second, though much less known, Bremen group that fascinates children in particular. According to the legend, seven fathers sent their seven sons out into the world to find out what was new. When they returned to the Hanseatic city they had wells built, because they were tired of dragging water from the river every day, and they had the streets paved, because they were tired of constantly having to pull laden carts out of the mud. Their fathers referred to them as lazy, whereas they were in fact the first real innovators, improving the city’s quality of life through their intelligent ideas.