I've been reading the poet Yeats' book, The Celtic Twilight, which is full of Irish folk accounts of meetings with faery, witches, and other magical folk. So it was with much interest that I read Whitley Streiber's reflections this week on a medieval English story about mysterious green children found near the small town of Woolpit.
These children, a boy and a girl, were green-skinned. They spoke a language that no one understood, dressed strangely, and were unfamiliar with ordinary foods, eating only beans until they acquired a taste for the food of the local people. The boy died, but the girl lived long enough to learn to speak English.
Baobhan sith (pronounced Bavan shee), a beautiful dangerous creature of Irish myth, by Natasha Zraikat
The green girl's story is intriguing. She spoke of a green people who lived in a twilight place not far away, and told how she and her brother had gotten lost, and come out through a cave to the field where they were found.
Read the story on the Ancient Origins website at:
The Story of the Green Children
According to the account of the green children, a boy and his sister were found by reapers working their fields at harvest time near some ditches that had been excavated to trap wolves at St Mary’s of the Wolf Pits (Woolpit). Their skin was tinged with a green hue, their clothes were made from unfamiliar materials, and their speech was unintelligible to the reapers. They were taken to the village, where they were eventually accepted into the home of local landowner, Sir Richard de Caine at Wilkes.
The children would not eat any food presented to them but appeared starving. Eventually, the villagers brought round recently harvested beans, which the children devoured. They survived only on beans for many months until they acquired a taste for bread.
The boy became sick and soon succumbed to illness and died, while the girl remained in good health and eventually lost her green-tinged skin. She learned how to speak English and was later married to a man at King’s Lynn, in the neighboring county of Norfolk. According to some accounts, she took the name ‘Agnes Barre’ and the man she married was an ambassador of Henry II, although these details have not been verified. After she learned how to speak English, she relayed the story of their origins.
- See more at: http://www.ancient-origins.net/unexplained-phenomena/green-children-woolpit-12th-century-legend-visitors-another-world-002347#sthash.uhfnhomW.dpufThe girl reported that she and her brother came from the “Land of Saint Martin”, where there was no sun, but a perpetual twilight, and all the inhabitants were green like them. She described another ‘luminous’ land that could be seen across a river.
She and her brother were looking after their father’s flock, when they came upon a cave. They entered the cave and wandered through the darkness for a long time until they came out the other side, entering into bright sunlight, which they found startling. It was then that they were found by the reapers.
- See more at: http://www.ancient-origins.net/unexplained-phenomena/green-children-woolpit-12th-century-legend-visitors-another-world-002347#sthash.uhfnhomW.dpufThe Story of the Green Children
According to the account of the green children, a boy and his sister were found by reapers working their fields at harvest time near some ditches that had been excavated to trap wolves at St Mary’s of the Wolf Pits (Woolpit). Their skin was tinged with a green hue, their clothes were made from unfamiliar materials, and their speech was unintelligible to the reapers. They were taken to the village, where they were eventually accepted into the home of local landowner, Sir Richard de Caine at Wilkes.
The children would not eat any food presented to them but appeared starving. Eventually, the villagers brought round recently harvested beans, which the children devoured. They survived only on beans for many months until they acquired a taste for bread.
The boy became sick and soon succumbed to illness and died, while the girl remained in good health and eventually lost her green-tinged skin. She learned how to speak English and was later married to a man at King’s Lynn, in the neighboring county of Norfolk. According to some accounts, she took the name ‘Agnes Barre’ and the man she married was an ambassador of Henry II, although these details have not been verified. After she learned how to speak English, she relayed the story of their origins.
Artist’s depiction of the Green Children of Woolpit (Image source)
A Strange Underground Land
The girl reported that she and her brother came from the “Land of Saint Martin”, where there was no sun, but a perpetual twilight, and all the inhabitants were green like them. She described another ‘luminous’ land that could be seen across a river.
She and her brother were looking after their father’s flock, when they came upon a cave. They entered the cave and wandered through the darkness for a long time until they came out the other side, entering into bright sunlight, which they found startling. It was then that they were found by the reapers.
Explanations
Over the centuries, many theories have been put forward to explain this strange account. Regarding their green colouring, one proposal is that the children were suffering from Hypochromic Anemia, originally known as Chlorosis (coming from the Greek word ‘Chloris’, meaning greenish-yellow). The condition is caused by a very poor diet that affects the color of the red blood cells and results in a noticeably green shade of the skin. In support of this theory is the fact that the girl is described as returning to a normal color after adopting a healthy diet.
With regards to the description of the strange land, Paul Harris suggested in Fortean Studies 4 (1998) that the children were Flemish orphans, possibly from a nearby place known as Fornham St. Martin, which was separated from Woolpit by the River Lark. A lot of Flemish immigrants had arrived during the 12th century but were persecuted under the reign of King Henry II. In 1173, many were killed near Bury St Edmunds. If they had fled into Thetford Forest, it may have seemed like permanent twilight to the frightened children. They may also have entered one of the many underground mine passages in the area, which finally led them to Woolpit. Dressed in strange Flemish clothes and speaking another language, the children would have presented a very strange spectacle to the Woolpit villagers.
Other commentators have suggested a more ‘other-worldly’ origin for the children. Robert Burton suggested in his 1621 book ‘The Anatomy of Melancholy’ that the green children "fell from Heaven", leading others to speculate that the children may have been extraterrestrials. In a 1996 article published in the magazine Analog, astronomer Duncan Lunan hypothesised that the children were accidentally transported to Woolpit from their home planet, which may be trapped in synchronous orbit around its sun, presenting the conditions for life only in a narrow twilight zone between a fiercely hot surface and a frozen dark side.
The story of the green children has endured for over eight centuries since the first recorded accounts. While the real facts behind the story may never be known, it has provided the inspiration for numerous poems, novels, operas, and plays across the world, and continues to capture the imagination of many curious minds.
Featured image: A village sign in Woolpit, England, depicting the two green children of the 12th century legend (Wikimedia)
References
Clark, J. (2006). “Small, vulnerable ETs”: The Green Children of Woolpit. Science Fiction Studies, Vol 33 (2), pp 209 – 229.
The Green Children of Woolpit – Mysterious Britain and Ireland. Available from: http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/england/suffolk/folklore/the-green-children-of-woolpit.html
The Wild Kids of Woolpit – Mysterious Universe. Available from: http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2013/11/the-wild-kids-of-woolpit/
The Green Children of Woolpit – Myths and Legends. Available from: http://myths.e2bn.org/mythsandlegends/origins24-the-green-children-of-woolpit.html
The Green Children of Woolpit by Brian Haughton. Available from: http://brian-haughton.com/ancient-mysteries-articles/green-children-of-woolpit/
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Several theories have been proposed to account for the children, from Flemish refugees living deep in the woods, to an isolated community suffering from a particular nutrient deficiency that turned them green. Whitley Streiber, who has much experience with alien visitors, wonders if the children might perhaps be aliens accidentally left behind.
http://www.unknowncountry.com/news/weekender-green-children-woolpit-allegory-alien-visitation
My head still full of faeries, I wonder if the children might not have come from a human society here on earth, living underground, in caves or deep woods, keeping themselves apart from above-ground human beings (very sensible!), rarely glimpsed and perhaps contributing to the many beliefs in ancient little people, elves and other mysterious folk.
Fairies looking down a pathway, by John Anster Fitzgerald.
There is evidence of great networks of underground caves in come parts of England and elsewhere, so there could have been whole communities, even an unknown civilization of folk living there. Maybe they are all gone now, remaining only in folk traditions and fairytales, or maybe some still remain, living close to this earth, hoping that we surface-dwellers don't make too great a botch of it.
I wonder why it is that so many people who accept the possibility that we can be visited, and sometimes see angels, shut their minds to the idea of fairies, elves and other magical creatures. I have seen an angel - not the winged kind, but a silent tall figure of light that stood at the foot of my bed for three consecutive nights, as have many others.
The poet-artist William Blake saw a whole tree of angels when he was eight, and conversed with them throughout his life, which apparently had an enormous influence on him. A woman who was boarding in his house at Blake's death said, "I have been at the death, not of a man, but of a blessed angel." He also saw fairies.
Angels by Blake
As a child, psychic Edgar Cayce played with fairies in his back yard, and later, had a significant angel visitation that set the course of his life. Apparently, angel visitations are becoming more common; we certainly need them.
Elves have become quite popular since the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies came out, but for most people, they are fantasy beings. In Iceland, however, the belief in elves, who often dwell in or beneath large rocks, is still alive (love those Icelanders!), so much so that the Icelanding parliament ordered roadworks to be rerouted to avoid disturbing a site believed to be inhabited by elves.
Elf habitat protected by Iceland parliament
If Elves do indeed live among the rocks, then rocky, starkly beautiful Iceland could be full of them.
"There are many splendid dwellings. One is there called Alfheim. There dwell the folk that are called light-elves; but the dark-elves dwell down in the earth, and they are unlike the light-elves in appearance, but much more so in deeds. The light-elves are fairer than the sun to look upon, but the dark-elves are blacker than pitch." (softpedia.com)
Man pursuing the elf Huldur in Icelandic myth.
In Norse as well as Celtic folklore, elves may be forest dwellers like the woodland elves in The Hobbit, and often live near water, as do many magical creatures.
Some of the most fierce of magical creatures live in or near water, for water is always a place of unknown deeps, uncertainly and mystery. In earlier times, these beings were often benign or helpful, warning humans away from danger, giving them advice and blessings. For some reason, as Christianity replaced the old beliefs, water beings - ladies of the lake, water sprites, the slavic Rusalki - became creatures of the dark forces, luring children, young girls and especially young men to their death.
Yet all across Europe and into the slavic countries, most of the early churches were built above or very near to the sacred waters, wells and springs of the pagans. To me, that suggests that the power of these places was believed to be very strong indeed, and that creatures of the water were held in such high veneration that the church intentionally and methodically undertook a campaign to discredit and demonize them.
"According to Vladimir Propp [Russian linguist and recorder of many slavic fairytales], the original "rusalka" was an appellation used by Pagan Slavic tribes, who linked them with fertility and did not consider rusalki evil before the nineteenth century. They came out of the water in the spring to transfer life-giving moisture to the fields and thus helped nurture the crop.
"It is accounted by most stories that the soul of a young woman who had died in or near a river or a lake came back to haunt that waterway. This undead rusalka is not invariably malevolent, and will be allowed to die in peace if her death is avenged. Her main purpose is, however, to lure young men, seduced by either her looks or her voice, into the depths of said waterways, where she would entangle their feet with her long red hair and submerge, her body would instantly become very slippery, therefore disallowing the victim to cling on to it for reaching the surface. She would then wait until the victim drowns, or, on some occasions, tickle them to death as she laughs." (wikepedia)
Water sprites, the Rhine maidens, by Arthur Rackham
In the fairytales that I write or make up for my grandchildren, one must be cautious around water maidens, but if approached respectfully and when they are so inclined, they can be very helpful.
drawing by Tosca
Do I think such creatures really exist? Of course I do. We may no longer see them because we have become too heavy, too closed-minded and distrustful to attune ourselves to the more subtle, fluid vibrations of the magical world, but like the spirits of our departed and higher beings that are constantly around us, they exist, and one day, we may be able to see them again.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy". (Shakespeare, Hamlet)
Comments
There are so many questions to be asked here.. We can only hope an event like this occurs again sometime during our lives so we can experience the mystery.
Fascinating story. As Deaegean writes, we can only speculate unless something happens in our time. Very interesting though. Thanks for the article - I'd never heard the story before.
Celtic, Viking & Mythical sculptures, carvings & artwork: www.justbod.co.uk
Justbod Blog: www.justbod.blogspot.co.uk/
Hey did anyone read Game of Thrones? There are a green, otherworldly brother and sister pair in it...This must be where the idea came from.
I thought the same thing
This is an awesome article. To me, the Flemmish anemic theory makes the most sense. It is fun to think they came from another world, though.
Yes it would make sense, but then again no matter how big or dark the forest is - one is ALWAYS bound to see the sun shining through. At least once a day / week / month.
Dont even know what to think of this even though had heard it before.
The Flemish theory makes indeed the most sense, except for the fact they wouln't eat anything but beans. That is very strange, I suppose they must have seen and eaten other foods, before the became lost...if indeed they were Flemish.
This is the stuff fairytales are made of..
Sunny Young
Hello am new here. Having just read the article above I believe the answer is simple, the children came from another dimension.
My theory is that we live in only one dimension, but can move through them. There are various way, at present, it is only at death. Some of these worlds are available if we could find a way to pass through to them.
I even believe that visiters from space, are only moving through a dimensional field.
Glee
It is an ancient belief that rock is a barrier between dimensions or other worlds. I am an avid spelunker; every time I enter a cave I wonder if I will later emerge into the world I just left, or something entirely different and strange....
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