There is an old legend from an English village called Woolpit, in Suffolk. A thousand years ago, during the 1100's, Post Norman conquest era, at the time of King Stephen, village peasants were working in a field during a warm summer afternoon during harvest season. They soon came across two strange children inside one of the pits, that was dug around the field to trap wolves. (The name Woolpit gets its name from "wolf pit"). The two children, a boy and a girl, brother and sister, were green in colour. They were unable to communicate with the villagers and they spoke in an unusual language. The clothes that they were were made from leaves, roots, tree bark and unrecognisable fabric.
The children seemed delirious and frightened but were taken in by the villagers. Then shortly the children were put into the care of a landowner called Sir Richard de Calne, who hoped to learn the children's language. They lived with him in his house at Wikes. Both children appeared distressed and hungry but none of them wanted any of the food offered to them. Later they were offered a dish of raw fresh beans (some with stalks and others covered in mud) and that was the only thing they liked to eat.
Over a period of time, the boy became ill and passed away. His sister grew healthier and changed her appearance. Her green hair and skin faded away until she looked like a regular girl. She was soon baptised and taught lessons in the English language. When she could talk in English, she told of her experience living in a place called Saint Martin. It had always been twilight there in her original homeland. She and her brother lived with their father. Everyone who lived there were green. There was a vast river and across that was a glowing luminous land that she and her brother wanted to visit. The brother and sister were tending to their father's cattle when they followed the sound of bells, coming from within a cave. They followed the sound of ringing bells through a tunnel and then emerged at the other end of the cave in a world with strong blinding sunlight, in Woolpit. They realised they were in another world but when they turned to go back into the cave, they couldn't find it anymore.
As a young woman, she turned beautiful and her enigma attracted a lot of attention. It's said that she was "Agnes Barre" when she married a man called Richard Barre, a chancellor to King Henry the Second of England. They had children and their descendants include Earl Ferrers. This supposed lineage is speculation because some people don't link Richard Barre with the husband of Agnes Barre.
The account was written in the 12th Century by a monk and historian named William of Newburgh.
So many people come up with theories. Some believe the children were Flemmish, escaping warring villages and living off grass, resulting in green pallor. Others think arsenic poisoning was the reason for the children's greenish colouring. Some doubt the timeframe because the period was supposedly during the reign of King Stephen but later on pushed to the realm of King Henry II. Or this is a summery of reports and an actual event that the medieval monk wrote down. Perhaps it's all a fairytale? Britain is full of fairytales and stories of strange phenomena, unusual animals, people, landscapes and mystery objects. People today think the green children come from another dimension or a parallel universe.
What do I think of this? Based on what I've researched, there might be some truth in the Flemmish idea. Yet there is also the eerieness of the girl's story and the green features. There is a possibility that she and her brother were of the fairy folk. What we have left is a legend now of two mysterious children discovered in a wolf pit. The rest has become mythology and folklore.
Links and Further Reading:
"Hidden History: Lost Civilisations, Secret Knowledge and Ancient Mysteries," by Brian Haughton.
The Green Children of Woolpit
The Green Children... Mysterious Britain
Anomaly info - Green Children of Woolpit