The Green Children of Woolpit: A Mini-Essay

     During the middle of the twelfth century, the small farming community of Woolpit in Suffolk, England, experienced a bizarre occurrence which has baffled historians and scientists and left an enduring mark on the town, with the village sign commemorating the incident in its ironwork.[1] Early one summer morning, farmworkers were startled to witness two children, their skin a greenish hue and their clothing an unfamiliar design, emerge from a nearby pit. They spoke to each other in an alien tongue and, when presented with food, refused to eat anything but green beans.[2] Although the young boy died shortly after their discovery, the girl lived a long life, slowly adjusting to a normal diet, losing her green coloration, and learning English, which allowed her to recount how the two younglings had escaped their homeland of perpetual twilight and, after being blinded by a dazzling light, awakened in a pit outside of the village.[3] Her story baffled the villagers and, to this day, continues to confuse scholars and laymen alike. In 1621, Robert Burton proposed the youths were angels who had fallen from heaven and, in 2012, Duncan Lunan conjectured the beings were extraterrestrials mistakenly transported from their home planet to Earth. While Burton and Lunan propose otherworldly explications, Paul Harris and Nick Redfern present more plausible clarifications. For Harris, the two children were part of a group of Flemish immigrants who, evading persecution by King Henry II, settled in the Thetford Forest and were either orphaned or separated from their parents.[4] Although Harris’ postulation accounts for the foreign dress and language, it does not account for the green skin; therefore, Redfern argues they suffered from Hypochromic Anemia, a result of malnourishment (which would have been plausible during the immigrants’ hiding) that causes the skin to develop a greenish-yellow tint and abates once a more nutritious diet is obtained, as was the case with the little girl.[5]

Works Referenced

Burton, Robert. The Anatomy of Melancholy, What It Is, with All the Kinds, Causes, Symptoms, Prognostics, and Several Cures of It. London: William Tegg, 1863.

Harris, Paul. “The Green Children of Woolpit.” Fortean Times 57 (1991): 39, 41.

Jones, Richard. Myths and Legends of Britain and Ireland. New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 2003.

Lunan, Duncan. Children from the Sky: A Speculative Treatment of a Mediaeval Mystery – the Green Children of Woolpit. London: Mutusliber, 2012.

Redfern, Nick. Secret History: Conspiracies from Ancient Aliens to the New World Order. Detroit, IL: Visible Ink, 2015. 
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[1] Jones, 76.
[2] Jones, 76.
[3] Jones, 76.
[4] Harris, 39, 41.
[5] Redfern, 89.