Written accounts evidence that between 1135 and 1154 CE two strange children were found near Woolpit, England. Ralph, Abbot of Coggeshall, and William of Newburg who lived at the time have been credited with writing the accounts. Farmers, harvesting their fields, heard horrifying cries. They went to investigate and help. They found two children crouching close to a pit. They were screaming in fear uttering a language not known to their rescuers. Their clothing was made of a material unknown to them. Their skin was green, allegedly due to their being malnourished. Richard de Calne gave them shelter. The locals helped as best they could. They brought food and drink, which the children refused. Someone brought them beanstalks which they eagerly ate.
The Green Children's Lives
The boy soon died. The girl survived, learned English and married. Her skin lost the green color after her diet included more varieties of food. Then, she was able to tell people where she came from.
Two accounts vary. They lived in a land of eternal twilight where there was no sun. All of the inhabitants there were green. The children heard bells from a cave and followed the sound. They saw light and found the pit. The other version is that they were swept up by a whirlwind.
Their native country was a luminous one that could be seen far away. It was separated from England by a large body of water. According to various sources, their native home was called St. Martin's Land, St. Martin or Merlin's Land. Another proposed it was the village of Fordham St. Martin that the children wandered from. It was written that the inhabitants were Christians and built churches to have services in.
The King of England at the time the children came to Woolpit was either Stephen or Henry II, according to different authors.
Accounts of where girl lived after marrying also differ. One is that she lived in Lenna, Suffolk. The other is that she lived in King’s Lynne, Norfolk. Her name is not given in the documents and it’s unsure whether or not she had children.
To further complicate matters, there is a similar account of green children being found near Banjos, Spain in 1887. In this one, the girl died in 1892. As with Woolpit, accounts vary.
Green Children: Theories
Some think the children were Martians while others postulate they were from a fourth dimension next to ours. None of the records indicate that there were strange phenomena in the vicinity when the children were found, either in Woolpit or Banjos. There was no mention of UFOs.
There was a legend about a Medieval Earl in Norfolk who was appointed guardian to two children who would inherit an estate. He tried to poison them with arsenic because he wanted their inheritance. He abandoned them in Wayland Wood near the Norfolk-Suffolk border. When the farmers found them, they were disoriented from poisoning and malnutrition.
Several writers allege anemia can cause the skin to turn green. One author stated that arsenic poisoning had the same effect. Anemia can cause the skin to pale, but not turn green. Green skin is not a side effect of arsenic poisoning.
The green children might be a legend as the Norfolk Earl is or it could be the product of some Middle Age’s writers' imaginations. It is possible that the Banjos account is Woolpit retold in a Spanish location.
Or, perhaps, it really happened?
Source:
Unexplained! Jerome Clark, (Visible Ink Press, 1999)
