Green children of Woolpit

Lore & Background

According to William of Newburgh, the children were discovered at harvest time beside a wolf pit in Woolpit. Ralph of Coggeshall reports they were taken to the home of Sir Richard de Calne. Both chroniclers agree that the children refused all food for several days until they ate raw broad beans, which they consumed eagerly. Over time, they adapted to normal food and lost their green colour. The boy, sickly, died around the time of baptism; the girl survived and learned English.

Reader's Guide

The story of the Green Children of Woolpit is significant as a rare medieval account of an unexplained encounter, preserved in two near-contemporary chronicles. It has been interpreted in two dominant ways: as a folktale describing an imaginary encounter with inhabitants of a fairy Otherworld (or, in modern readings, extraterrestrial beings), or as a garbled account of a real event, possibly involving drugging or kidnapping. The tale was praised as an ideal fantasy by the poet and critic Herbert Read in his 1928 English Prose Style and inspired his only novel, The Green Child (1935). Its legacy lies in its enduring mystery and its role in folklore studies, where it is listed as a unique example of a motif involving inhabitants of a lower world visiting mortals.

Did You Know?

• The children spoke an unknown language and would eat only raw broad beans when first found.
• The girl, after learning English, said she and her brother came from a land where the sun never shone and the light was like twilight.
• The only near-contemporary accounts are by William of Newburgh (c. 1189) and Ralph of Coggeshall (c. 1220).
• The story inspired Herbert Read's only novel, The Green Child, published in 1935.