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The green children.
The legend about the green
children from Woolpit has - as mentioned in the intereview
with Ernst Altien on
www.youtube.com
- played a decisive role for him in his understanding of
himself. The legend of the green children is from the 12th
century England and tells us about two kids, a boy and a girl,
who were discovered in the fields without any kins or friends.
The boy died shortly after they were found, and the girl grew up
and lived a more normal life. They were both green when found,
and they told strange stories about the place, they had been
living in before.
The concept of coming out
of nowhere and disappering again without a trace is also found
in the story of Kasper Hauser from Germany and in other legends
with the same theme, which can be seen as a parafrase of the
human life, since we all are coming from nowhere and must leave
everything, we ever had. The legend as retold by
Thomas Keightley in The
Fairy Mythology, 1850,, pg. 281-283
stands below. You can find much more information about this
strange legend on the homepage
http://anomalyinfo.com/articles/sa00022.shtml.
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"'Another wonderful thing,' says Ralph of Coggeshall ,'happened in
Suffolk, at St. Mary's of the Wolf-pits. A boy and his sister were
found by the inhabitants of that place near the mouth of a pit which
is there, who had the form of all their limbs like to those of other
men, but they differed in the colour of their skin from all the
people of our habitable world; for the whole surface of their skin
was tinged of a green colour. No one could understand their speech.
When they were brought as curiosities to the house of a certain
knight, Sir Richard de Calne, at Wikes, they wept bitterly. Bread
and other victuals were set before them, but they would touch none
of them, though they were tormented by great hunger, as the girl
afterwards acknowledged. At length, when some beans just cut, with
their stalks, were brought into the house, they made signs, with
great avidity, that they should be given to them. When they were
brought, they opened the stalks instead of the pods, thinking the
beans were in the hollow of them; but not finding them there, they
began to weep anew. When those who were present saw this, they
opened the pods, and showed them the naked beans. They fed on these
with delight, and for a long time tasted no other food. The boy,
however, was always languid and depressed, and he died within a
short time.
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The girl enjoyed continual good health; and becoming accustomed to
various kinds of food, lost completely that green colour, and
gradually recovered the sanguine habit of her entire body. She was
afterwards regenerated by the laver of holy baptism, and lived for
many years in the service of that knight (as I have frequently heard
from him and his family), and was rather loose and wanton in her
conduct. Being frequently asked about the people of her country, she
asserted that the inhabitants, and all they had in that country,
were of a green colour; and that they saw no sun, but enjoyed a
degree of light like what is after sunset. Being asked how she came
into this country with the aforesaid boy, she replied, that as they
were following their flocks, they came to a certain cavern, on
entering which they heard a delightful sound of bells; ravished by
whose sweetness, they went for a long time wandering on through the
cavern, until they came to its mouth. When they came out of it, they
were struck senseless by the excessive light of the sun, and the
unusual temperature of the air; and they thus lay for a long time.
Being terrified by the noise of those who came on them, they wished
to fly, but they could not find the entrance of the cavern before
they were caught.' |