The Green Children of Woolpit

Sometime in the twelfth century, reapers in the English village of Woolpit found two children at the edge of a field. Their skin was green. They spoke a language no one understood and would eat nothing but raw beans. The boy soon died, but the girl survived, learned English, and described a twilight land where the sun never rose. In this episode, we look at what two medieval chroniclers recorded, why a famously skeptical historian believed it, and the theories — from malnutrition to Flemish refugees — that have tried to explain the Green Children of Woolpit.

🎙️ History Shorts is a daily history podcast hosted by historian and author of Eight Days in August, Peter Zablocki. New episodes every day.

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