The Curious Case of the Green Children of Woolpit

→Subscribe for new videos every day!

Follow Simon on social media:

Never run out of things to say at the water cooler with TodayIFoundOut! Brand new videos 7 days a week!

More from TodayIFoundOut:

What Happens If You are Sleep Walking and You Kill Someone?

Killing a Cat in Court

In this video:

English folklore is filled with green people – the Green Knight, green fairies, the Green Man and Jack-in-the-Green. Two of the smallest were the Green Children of Woolpit.

Sources:

[seannotconnery]

To be fair, a whimsical tale of little green forest children wandering the woodland realms sounds a lot nicer than two poor street urchins dying from iron deficiency.

[tabcat]

It's not easy being green . . . because it denotes an iron deficiency.

[whatyousaidbud]

Little green people who speak an unrecognizable language?? You sir are talking about leprechauns!!

[madnessbydesignVria]

In my high school there was a girl who had a green tint to her skin. She said she was allergic to sun light. Now I know she was really from Woolpit... :)

[charliemason]

"...Only spoke their village's unique dialect. Some of which were unintelligible to outsiders." Describes present day England as well.

[morgansparhawk]

Maybe they were from Greenland.

I'll see myself out... 😁

[socks]

whenever this story pops up i'm surprised that no one ever mentions that these children could have been abused. with the things stated in this video, and disregarding otherworldly origins (as they are.. unlikely), it's possible that these kids weren't allowed out of their homes, their village might have not even know of their existence, likely either keep in their home or in the mines mentioned in the video, only being allowed outside during sunset to tend to the cows.. maybe the parents didn't let them out due to their illness, fearing superstitious retaliation from others against their children. i think there's a possibility of something along these lines happening.

[seamusmcgoldrick]

If they were twins it could have been a twin dialect that they stuck to out of fear.

[nazmunnahar]

UK: "We have the green children of Woolpit."
USA: "We have the blue people of Kentucky."



*Marvel: We have both.*

[maud]

Being Flemish and an historian having studied medieval Dutch/Flemish I can already tell you that if those children were flemish the local Woolpit people wouldn't have called it a "strange language' because many words are the same in both English and flemish (water, gras, bed, wolf, etc) and medieval English and medieval Flemish even had way more words in common. They'd figure it out pretty fast if it was Dutch or German. edit: as somewhat stated in the video I now hear :)

[mumpierre-freytes]

This tale is similar to the green children of Barcelona, Spain. They were found in a cave, the boy died a few days later. The girl was taken care of in a convent. She used to sit for hours staring at the sun. When asked how did they ended up in the cave, she said "the wind brought us here". I think it's the same story being told a little different.

[junkmalme]

Giorgio A. Tsoukalos: It was aliens.
Simon: It was not aliens

[marydevling]

This is the most sensible explanation I have heard concerning this old tale. Thanks!

[ericp]

I knew the rudiments of this story, but this is the best explanation I’ve heard. Thank you!

[JosephFuller]

'Ancient astronaut theorists say, "No."'
It is likely that these children have appeared on the History Channel before as *_proof_* that aliens have visited Earth in the past. It would be funny to see their reaction to this logical explanation of the event.

[unvergebeneid]

Haha, nice try by that German doctor!
"I'm afraid your daughter suffers from what is called the 'disease of virgins.'"
"Oh my God! Whatever can we do?!"
"Well... I could offer to treat her right away..."

[timfrey]

the story is just as sad if you do believe the other dimension thing. People think "hey traveling to other dimensions sounds fun", but imagine being small children and getting lost, and winding up in not just a strange neighborhood or city but entirely new dimension, there is no way back, no just turning around and retracing your steps, adults help you but they'll never get home again, and on top of it your sibling dies because you weren't able to find familiar food in this different world, and you have to just get used to this place and forget about ever seeing your family again. It sounds like a living nightmare to me, people think it sounds mystical and fun, but if it actually happened your life would be ruined.

[mattlumley]

WOW!! That's crazy, I live 5mins from Bury St Edmunds and never knew that!! Simon keep bringing these videos out TOP MAN

[nickgehr]

*When hulk traveled back in time and did an oopsie*

[MattMcIrvin]

This was one of the great paranormal-weirdness stories of my childhood, played up in bathroom-reading compendia like "The Book of Lists" and "The People's Almanac' (what we had before the Internet).