When: King Stephen, 1150 AD (this was, apparently, a wild and magical time, with anarchy, civil war, wizard monks, and oddly colored children about)
Where: Woolpit, Suffolk, England
A boy and a girl with green skin show up in Woolpit around harvest time. They don’t speak English and are acting all weird and shit. They are taken to a nobleman’s home and offered food, but they refuse to eat anything they’re offered. Eventually, they chill out and eat some raw green beans. They lived there for several years, during which time they slowly were able to eat a more varied diet and speak the new language. The change in diet led to them losing their green color. The little boy eventually dies, but the little girl is given the name Agnes and grows up, becomes a nice normal, god-fearing woman, gets married, and has a kid. Like you do. There are some stories that note she was a little slutty and misbehaved, which probs mean she was a normal person. When they were able to speak, they were asked where they came from.
Quoteth:
“We are inhabitants of the land of St. Martin, who is regarded with peculiar veneration in the country which gave us birth.”
“We are ignorant [of how we arrived here]; we only remember this, that on a certain day, when we were feeding our father’s flocks in the fields, we heard a great sound, such as we are now accustomed to hear at St. Edmund’s, when the bells are chiming; and whilst listening to the sound in admiration, we became on a sudden, as it were, entranced, and found ourselves among you in the fields where you were reaping.”
“The sun does not rise upon our countrymen; our land is little cheered by its beams; we are contented with that twilight, which, among you, precedes the sun-rise, or follows the sunset. Moreover, a certain luminous country is seen, not far distant from ours, and divided from it by a very considerable river.
They are from St. Martin’s land, they were tending their father’s flocks and heard a bell ringing, supposedly from the local church, and then found themselves in the fields of Woolpit. In St. Martin’s land, there is no sun, just a perpetual twilight. It is not far away from Woolpit, and the two lands are separated by a river. In some versions of the story, the strange noise compelled them to enter a cave,and when they emerged, they found themselves in Woolpit. When asked if they had Christianity there, they claimed they did believe in Christ and had churches.
The most popular explanation was that they were Flemish, separated from their parents while fleeing persecution from the English, and lost in the woods. They were probably malnourished, causing them to have that green color. Other explanations include the children arriving from the fairy Otherworld, a tale of racial tensions between the Anglo English and indigenous Britons, and, of course,
Who is St Martin and where is St. Martin’s land? There are no areas known as St. Martin’s land in the area at that time. However, in the 17th century, there was a Flemish village of Fornham St. Martin adjacent to Woolpit, but it is not on any maps of the time. The Flemish inhabitants of this village were massacred, leading to the theory of the children being lost Flemish children, and perhaps, timelines were fudged.
Sources:
https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/The-Green-Children-of-Woolpit/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_children_of_Woolpit
https://historyofyesterday.com/the-green-children-of-woolpit-77647fa58044
