The green children of Woolpit - A mysterious legend

 The green childern of Woolpit :

       Source: www.ancient-origins.net

About nine centuries ago ( between 1150 and 1200) , in the village of Woolpit , a county in Suffolk , East Anglia which is situated in England , there a mysterious legend was born. In the 12th century , two unknown children (A boy & A girl)  were founded by some reapers in the woods of Woolpit.

The reapers founded them in a wolf pit which was digged to trap wolves . When they first saw them , they were shocked and astonished at the same time. Because , the two children were in green color. Their body was wholly green hued. 

Then, in respect to the legend ,they were sent to the home of Sir Richard de Calne ( said to be a squire) and he gave them a home to live and took care of them. He asked and offered them food. But they refused to accept. 

But one day they came to see a green bean plant in the garden of Sir Richard de Calne. They ran and ate the beans ( According to a version). Another version includes the village populace that offered the beanstalks. That incident was quite a surprise to Richard and the fellow villagers. They somehow managed to survive a few months by only eating green beans. 

          Source: www. historydaily.org

Richard then understood that they only like to eat raw greenish foods. After days passing through, it was said that Richard  slowly tried to convince them to eat normal foods. Finally, it worked too. After a few months they were introduced to bread and they started to like it. The two greenish hued children started to eat normal foods.

Also, it was written that the two children started to lose their greenish hue from their body. Some stated that they had green complexion which was the reason for their greenish look. But once when they started to eat normal food their green complexion was said to be gone.

                           Source:             www.immortalwordsmith.co.uk

When the reapers found them in the woods they were seen nervous at first. They wore dresses made up of a new kind of  material which the people in the village never seen. The reapers asked the two children. They spoke a different or likely an unknown language. When they get settled , he started to learn English. And they succeeded at learning English . So , everyone including Richard thought it was the right time to ask them. They asked the two children about where they lived before coming to Woolpit. 

The two children said that they lived in a place called St. Martin land. The two children also said that they lived in a place which always look twilight. They said that there was a church close to their place called St. Edmund's. The children said that they heard a ringing sound which is similar to St. Edmund's while they were feeding their father's flocks. 

   Source: www.theguardian.com

They followed the ringing sound and founded a cave in that area. The children  said that they went into the cave and found an exit which let them to that pit and by that time the reapers saw them and took them to the village. The girl also said that they could see a luminous country from their place ( St. Martin's land ) which is being divided by a river. They said that their place was neither bright nor dark. It's twilight according to them. The children said that they were amazed and confused at the same time while seeing bright lights which they never seen before.

            Source: https://en.wikipedia.org

There is a reference that the girl was then named as " Agnes " and worked for Richard for a few years. Later, she married an archdeacon from a neighborhood county of Norfolk called  "Richard Barre" according to some old writings. 

The girl was taken to the church and got baptized. She understood the importance of baptism and household skills. But, the boy became sick, then ,suffered from an unknown illness and died after a few months. According to some sources , it was mentioned that the boy went on depression. There are a lot of version for this story but some of them are plausible. 

Some theories explains that the green complexion was a result of eating greenish food for a long period of time. When they started to eat normal food, they recovered from such condition. Some suggests that they were from another world where there is a lack of sunlight and was always twilight. The children referred their environment as the sky before dawn and the sky after dusk. But some inferred that their physical appearance was similar to that of English.

             Source: www.medium.com

Also, there was a theory that they may be Europeans. This was deemed by their own words. They said that they were feeding flocks when they heard the ringing similar to St. Martin's , which means there farming exists too. They made a living by farming which is similar to practice in England. According to the theory, the environment must be similar to England. Another theory is that they after the girl got baptized , and learnt English , she got accustomed to their culture and practicing which means that they might already a bit familiar with the English culture. 

One theory suggest that they were of Flemish origin and somehow ended up in Woolpit . The people were confused because they probably may not heard flemish dialect. The reason for their greenish color may be a cause of Hypochromic Anemia. According to a study conducted in 1998 , it states that the children were Flemish orphans who lived in Fornham St. Martin's which was nearer to their " St. Martin's land " and was separated by the river called as River Lark. 

Source: www.ancient-origins.net

Around the 1170's , many Flemish people were killed . In order to survive the children may have entered Thetford forest and have found an underground mine in the forest and entered into it which was partially dark and twilight. Thus, they seeming strange in their Flemish clothes and speaking Flemish dialect may confused the populace of Woolpit village. 

There are a few more speculation too. One of them is that they might be Extraterrestrialals according to Robert Burton who mentioned them in his book "The Anatomy of Melancholy" which was published in the year of 1621. Another one is by an astronomer who expresses his thought that they might be transported from another planet to Woolpit. 

                            Source: www.thelibrarianwitch.blogspot.com

These entire events are stemmed by the writings of two authors who were thought to be the first ones to write about the green children. Though the first one to write was Ralph of Coggeshall (who lived 22 miles south of  woolpit) . He wrote about the green children in Chronicon Anglicarum (which translates to English chronicle) in the year of 1189. Ralph was an abbot in Coggeshall. According to Ralph ,Richard de Calne told him the entire story. 

Another one is a historian named William of Newburgh who wrote the story of the green children in his work called Historia rerun Anglicarum (which translates to History of English Affairs) in the year of 1220 which may be 40 or 50 years after the incident. There are lot of books which were written about them .

More than 800 years have passed since the origin of the green children and still, it remains as a mysterious story among the people.