The legend of the green children of Woolpit concerns two children of unusual skin colour. They reportedly appeared in the village of Wool Pit in Suffolk, England, some time in the 12th century, perhaps during the reign of King Stephen. The children, brother and sister, were of generally normal appearance except for the green colour of their skin. They spoke in an unknown language, and would only eat raw broad beans.
About Green children of Woolpit in brief
The legend of the green children of Woolpit concerns two children of unusual skin colour. They reportedly appeared in the village of Wool Pit in Suffolk, England, some time in the 12th century, perhaps during the reign of King Stephen. The children, brother and sister, were of generally normal appearance except for the green colour of their skin. They spoke in an unknown language, and would only eat raw broad beans. Eventually they learned to eat other food and lost their green colour, but the boy was sickly and died soon after he and his sister were baptised. After she learned to speak English, the girl explained that she and her brother had come from Saint Martin’s Land, a subterranean world inhabited by green people. The story was praised as an ideal fantasy by the English anarchist poet and critic Herbert Read in his English Prose Style, published in 1931. It provided the inspiration for his only novel, The Green Child, written in 1934. The only near-contemporary accounts are contained in William of Newburgh’s Historia rerum Anglicarum and Ralph of Coggeshall’s Chronicum Anglicanum,. written in about 1189 and 1220 respectively. Between then and their rediscovery in the mid-19th century the children seem to surface only in a passing mention in William Camden’s Britannia in 1586, and in Bishop Francis Godwin’s fantastical The Man in the Moone in the early 17th century.
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 from Woolpit, where he was still living before he wrote into his history of the family. Based on his research into the family, the writer Duncan Lunan, astronomer and writer of Lunan’s history, has written a book about the family called The Green Children. The book is available to buy on Amazon.com for about £20, with a p&p discount of about £3.50. For confidential support call the Samaritans in the UK on 08457 90 90 90, visit a local Samaritans branch or see www.samaritans.org for details. In the U.S. call the National Suicide Prevention Line on 1-800-273-8255, or click here for details on how to get in contact with the National suicide Prevention Lifeline (in the UK): the Samaritans). For confidential help in the United States, call theNational Suicide Prevention lifeline on 1 800 273 8255 or visit the National Suicide Lifeline on 8457, in the U S and UK for £1,000 in the UK or the U-S for help on the U-S for £2, £3, $5, €5, and £5,000.
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This page is based on the article Green children of Woolpit published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 03, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
