Saturday, March 21, 2026

The Green Children of Woolpit

 





In old British Folklore there's a tale of two strange or even otherworldly children that suddenly appeared one day near the  village of Woolpit in Suffolk England.  

The kids wore odd cloths and  spoke an unknown language however the most noticable difference was there green skin.

As the story goes, One day   two children, a boy and a girl, were found near a pit, possibly a wolf pit/den, in the village of Woolpit in 12th century ..1135-1154 .


The sister seemed to be in better health then the brother.

At first they both refused to eat any food  offered to them besides broad beans , though they eventually,  learned to eat other foods, and soon after their skin became normal.

Not long after there discovery, the boy passed away. 

The girl later named Agnes adjusted to her new life, but she was considered to be "very wanton and impudent". After she learned to speak English, the girl explained that she and her brother had come from a land where the sun never shone, and the light was like twilight. According to one version of the story, she said that everything there was green; according to another, she said it was called Saint Martin's Land.


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Full story, or at least the only two near contemporary accounts come from   William of Newburgh's Historia rerum Anglicarum and Ralph of Coggeshall's Chronicum Anglicanum, written in about 1189 and 1220, respectively.


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At harvest time one day during the reign of King Stephen (r. 1135–1154), according to William of Newburgh, the villagers of Woolpit discovered two children, a brother and sister, beside one of the wolf pits that gave the village its name.

Their skin was green, they spoke an unknown language, and their clothing was unfamiliar. Ralph of Coggeshall reports that the children were taken to the home of Richard de Calne. Ralph and William agree that the pair refused all food for several days until they came across some raw broad beans, which they consumed eagerly. 

The children gradually adapted to normal food and in time lost their green colour.

 It was decided to Baptis the children, but the boy, who appeared to be the younger of the two, was sickly and died before or soon after baptism.


After learning to speak English, the children—Ralph says just the surviving girl—explained that they came from a land where the sun never shone and the light was like twilight. William says the girl called their home St Martin's Land; Ralph adds that everything there was green. According to William, the children were unable to account for their arrival in Woolpit; they had been herding their father's cattle when they heard a loud noise (according to William, it was like the sound of the bells of Bury St Edmunds abbey and suddenly found themselves by the wolf pit where they were found. Ralph says that they had become lost when they followed the cattle into a cave and, after being guided by the sound of bells, eventually emerged into our land.


According to Ralph, the girl was employed for many years as a servant in Richard de Calne's household, where she was considered to be "very wanton and impudent". William says that she eventually married a man from King's Lynn, about 40 miles (64 km) from Woolpit, where she was still living shortly before he wrote.

Based on his research into Richard de Calne's family history, the astronomer and writer Duncan Lunan has concluded that the girl was given the name 'Agnes' and that she married a royal official named Richard Barre.

To this day nobody really know where he kids actually came from, one theory is that they were Flemish immigrants and the green skin could be due to chlorosis, a condition caused by iron deficiency, which would clear with a healthier diet. As it later did 






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