The Green Children of Woolpit – An Otherworldly Tale That Just Might be True
The story of the Green Children of Woolpit, Suffolk, has always been one of the strangest medieval folktales, and that's up against some pretty stiff competition. If you don't know it, it goes a bit like this…
A Strange Tale
The story is set at some point in the 12th century. The location is the village of Woolpit in Suffolk, England. One day during the harvest, the villagers discovered two children loitering around the 'wolf pits' (deep excavations designed to trap wolves, which at that time were still relatively common in England) and apprehended them. Apparently, they “had the form of all their limbs like to those of other men, but they differed in the color of their skin, which was tinged all over a green color.”
The Green Children of Woolpit, by Katalin Polonyi ©
