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The Green Children of Woolpit

A 12th-century story

From the mists of 12th-Century Suffolk comes the story of two mysterious green children — a girl of around 10 and a younger boy — from a strange land, speaking an unknown language.

Victims of civil strife

Like other feral children, the Green Children of Woolpit were probably children who had been lost or abandoned following a period of civil strife. Eastern England had experienced Flemish immigration during the 12th Century, but after Henry II acceded to the throne the immigrants suffered persecution, and many were slain at a battle in 1173. Being Flemish, the children's language and dress would have appeared foreign to villagers who'd never experienced any contact with Flemish people.

Following the slaughter of their parents, perhaps the Green Children were lost for some period of time in the forest, and strayed into the underground tunnels in that area, to emerge in the wolf pit at Woolpit (the village name comes from 'wolf pit').

Green sickness

The colour of the Green Children could be explained by "green sickness", the name once given to anaemia caused by dietary deficiency. The children were taken to the home of Sir Richard de Calne, where the girl eventually lost her green colour, as would be expected when a normal diet is resumed. The boy, however, grew ill and died within a year.

Further reading

The delightful children's book Maudie and the Green Children is based on this story. Note that the book Wolf Pit isn't about the Green Children per se, but one of the characters finds a book about them and becomes obsessed with them.

Read the full story of the Green Children of Woolpit

Read the full story of the Green Children as told by the mediaeval chroniclers Ralph of Coggeshall and William of Newburgh.

Sing more

Nichola Lefanu's exciting dramatic opera for children, The Green Children, explores universal issues of tolerance, love and friendship, communication and language. You can buy the score for The Green Children online. The Wolfpit: The Tale of the Green Children of Suffolk is a play in verse.

Green Descendants

The girl eventually married a man from King's Lynn (apparently this happened after some four years, by which time she would have been around 14) and took the name Agnes Barre. The current Earl Ferrers is descended from the de Ferrars family, who intermarried with a branch of the Devereux family, and whose pedigree included Anne, daughter of Sir John Barre, who had married Sir William Devereux in 1351, and is thus descended from Agnes.

Poetry about The Green Children of Woolpit

The Green Children inspired this poem by Martin Robertson: The Green Children of Woolpit.