The Green Children of Woolpit
Woolpit (Old English wulf-pytt) is an ancient Suffolk village named after a pit used for trapping wolves. One day around 1150, the villagers found two young children next to the pit. They wore unusual clothes and spoke an unfamiliar language. More than that, they had green skin.
The children were taken to the house of Sir Richard de Calne, the local lord, who took them in and offered them food which they refused, although they were obviously hungry. In the garden they found some green beans, which they devoured. It is believed that they lived with Sir Richard for several years and gradually he persuaded them to eat other foods and as they did so their skin lost its green pallor.
They also learnt to speak English and when they were sufficiently adept they were asked where they had come from. They said they came from ‘the land of St Martin’ where the sun never shone and everyone was green.
It may be a folk tale of otherworldly beings or else the basic story has become garbled through the years. One theory suggests that they were the descendants of Flemish immigrants but doesn’t explain how they arrived in Woolpit.
The green skin may have been caused by the ‘green sickness’, a form of anaemia caused by a lack of iron in the diet, which was alleviated by the introduction of good food.
Soon after the children were baptised the boy died but his sister, known as Agnes, continued to live with Sir Richard and later married the archdeacon of Ely, Richard Barre.
I wonder if Sue from ‘My Quiet Life in Suffolk’ can throw some light on this age-old legend.
