0:01

Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History

0:03

Class from how Stuff Works dot Com.

0:12

Hello and welcome to the podcast.

0:14

I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly

0:16

Fry. Still in our favorite month of the year,

0:18

October, Yes,

0:21

Halloween season, and so we

0:23

have an episode that I know a

0:26

lot of people have requested that the only person

0:28

I wrote down was Betty, So thank you Betty

0:30

and everyone that I forgot to write down

0:32

in addition to Betty. It is

0:34

a topic that was written about in the

0:37

twelfth and thirteen centuries as a

0:39

factual thing that really happened,

0:41

but some people today classify at more as folklore.

0:44

And it is the green children of Woolpit

0:47

who made a really eerie appearance

0:49

in Suffolk, England in the twelfth

0:51

century. We accidentally have a little

0:53

theme of like odd happenings in England

0:56

at the beginning of this season.

0:59

We're kicking off with weird English stuff

1:01

apparently, and by

1:03

today's standards. The village of Wolpit

1:05

is quite small, with a population of

1:08

only about two thousand people traveling

1:10

by car. It's a couple of hours northeast of

1:12

London. That's about thirty six miles

1:15

or fifty eight kilometers east of Cambridge,

1:17

and in the twelfth century the area was not

1:19

exactly bustling, but it was more densely

1:21

populated than much of rural England, and

1:24

it was a thriving agricultural center.

1:26

So, according to the story, one day

1:29

in Woolpit, two children, a

1:31

boy and a girl, emerged from a series

1:33

of pits that were used for trapping wolves.

1:36

These these wolf pits,

1:38

and not the fabric of wool

1:41

are where Wolpit gets its name, is

1:43

named after wolf pits. There

1:46

are two chronicles of this event

1:48

and what happened after these two children appeared.

1:51

One is by Ralph Abbot of Cogschal,

1:54

who wrote his explanation of what happened

1:56

as part of the Chronicon Anglicanum,

1:59

and the other is by William of Newburgh

2:01

and the Historia Rerum Anglicarum,

2:04

or the History of English Affairs, and

2:07

both men wrote these accounts in Latin.

2:10

A translation of William's version by Joseph

2:12

Stevenson is part of a truly colossal

2:15

set of volumes called The Church Historians

2:17

of England, which was published in eighteen fifty

2:19

three and is available online archive

2:22

dot org if you want to check it out. Stevenson

2:25

translated Ralph's version two, but we couldn't

2:27

find that part of the Chronicon anglican

2:29

Um in English online. So

2:32

instead of subjecting everyone to Ralph's Latin,

2:34

shoved through Google Translate, which is a

2:36

hilarious activity if you ever want to want

2:39

to get some comedy in your life. We're

2:41

going to read Stevenson's translation of

2:43

William's version. I did, indeed

2:46

of Ralph's Latin version through Google

2:48

Translate, and that was my amusement

2:50

for a good chunk of afternoon. Before

2:54

we get to William's version of this story,

2:56

though, I want to have a brief digression about

2:58

Joseph Stevenson because he is character.

3:01

He was the son of a surgeon, but he also

3:03

helped his uncle out in his job as a

3:05

smuggler. In his youth, he was

3:07

not particularly a good student either.

3:10

While he was enrolled at a grammar school that

3:12

was attached to Durham Cathedral, for

3:14

some reason, he was keeping a loaded pistol

3:17

among his possessions, which went off

3:19

while being handled by a servant,

3:21

and according to the Oxford Dictionary

3:23

of National Biography, that that

3:25

had quote dramatic, although

3:28

not grave, consequences I

3:30

feel like a tea set must have been

3:32

destroyed and

3:35

other things as well. It gave no detail,

3:37

but it makes it sound like Fortunately no one was

3:39

harmed in this accidental discharge

3:41

of a firearm, but there was some dramatic

3:44

incident. And in spite

3:46

of this checkered background, Stevenson

3:48

wound up working at the British Museum.

3:50

He married and he had two children, and

3:52

then he changed courses to join

3:54

the clergy after he was traumatized

3:57

by the death of his brother. He became

3:59

a pre east after the death of his wife.

4:01

So where we come around to these monumental

4:04

volumes of translated works

4:06

of history. He turned out to really have a knack

4:08

for translating and editing historical

4:11

documents. He did a lot of work for

4:13

the Historical Manuscript's Commission. He

4:15

put together a bunch of different gigantic collections

4:17

of historical documents for various different

4:20

clubs and historical societies.

4:22

These ranged from four to eight

4:24

volumes in length. Some of them

4:27

were these gargantia wine editions of old

4:29

religious and secular histories. And this was

4:31

just his thing. Apparently

4:33

he was also extremely personable

4:35

and generous as well. So

4:37

this is the guy that did the translation of the thing

4:39

that we're about to read. Yeah. Worthy of

4:42

a little mini biography there for sure. Uh

4:44

And back to the story. In Stevenson's

4:47

translation, William begins

4:49

his account by saying that it doesn't seem right

4:51

to skip over the story of the Green Children,

4:54

but at the same time he had some doubts

4:56

about the matter. It seemed

4:58

both ridiculous and serious. But

5:01

at the same time he had heard about it from so

5:03

many people, all of them very

5:05

respectable and competent, that he was

5:07

quote compelled to believe.

5:10

I feel like this is a twelfth century

5:12

version of the X Files poster.

5:16

I know, well, it's also a great that couching

5:18

that happens for spooky stories. And like, I

5:21

know, this is ridiculous, but there

5:23

are enough reasonable people to believe it that

5:25

there must be truth in it. Yes,

5:28

So we are going to read his whole account

5:30

because I love it and I want to share it with all

5:32

of you. And it's a bit long, So we are

5:34

going to take turns, as we recently

5:37

did when we talked about the

5:39

Devil's hoof prints. We took turns on a rather

5:41

lengthy passage. That's so what we're going to do again today. So

5:43

he he got into the story, saying,

5:46

in East Anglia, there's a village

5:48

distant, as it is said, four or

5:50

five miles from the noble monastery

5:53

of the Blessed King and Martyr Edmund.

5:55

Near this place are seen some very

5:57

ancient cavities called wolf

6:00

pits, that in English

6:02

pits for wolves, and which give

6:04

their name to the adjacent village. During

6:07

harvest, while the reapers were employed

6:09

in gathering the produce of the fields, two

6:11

children, a boy and a girl, completely

6:14

green in their persons and clad

6:16

in garments of a strange color and unknown

6:19

materials, emerged from

6:21

these excavations while

6:24

wandering through the fields in astonishment.

6:26

They were seized by the reapers and conducted

6:29

to the village, and many persons coming

6:31

to see so novel a sight. They

6:33

were kept some days without food, But

6:36

when they were nearly exhausted with hunger and

6:38

yet could relish no species of support

6:41

which was offered to them, it happened

6:43

that some beans were brought in from the field,

6:46

which they immediately seized with avidity

6:48

and examined the stock for the pulse, but

6:51

not finding it in the hollow of the stock,

6:53

they wept bitterly. Upon

6:56

this, one of the bystandards, taking

6:58

the beans from the pods, offered them

7:00

to the children, who seized them directly

7:02

and ate them with pleasure. This

7:05

next sentence is my favorite sentence, and the

7:07

entire thing by this food.

7:09

They were supported for many months until

7:12

they learned the use of bread. At

7:17

length by degrees, they changed their

7:19

original color through the natural

7:21

effect of our food, and became like ourselves,

7:24

and also learned our language. It seemed

7:26

fitting to certain discreet persons

7:28

that they should receive the sacrament of baptism,

7:31

which was administered accordingly. The

7:34

boy, who appeared to be the younger, surviving

7:37

his baptism but a little time, died

7:39

prematurely. His sister,

7:41

however, continued in good health and

7:44

differed not in the least from the women of our own

7:46

country. Afterwards,

7:48

as it is reported, she was married at

7:50

Lynne, and was living a few years since,

7:53

at least, so they say.

7:55

Moreover, after they had acquired

7:57

our language, on being asked who

8:00

and whence they were, they are said

8:02

to have replied, we are inhabitants

8:04

of the land of St. Martin, who was regarded

8:06

with peculiar veneration in the country

8:09

which gave us birth. Being further

8:11

asked where that land was and how they

8:13

came thence hither they answered,

8:16

we are ignorant of both these circumstances,

8:19

and we only remember this that on

8:21

a certain day, when we were feeding our father's

8:23

flocks in the fields, we heard a great

8:25

sound, such as we are now accustomed

8:27

to hear at St. Edmund's when the

8:29

bells are charming. And whilst

8:32

listening to the sound and admiration,

8:34

we became, on a sudden, as it were

8:36

entranced, and found ourselves among

8:39

you in the fields where you were reaping.

8:42

Being questioned whether in that land

8:44

they believed in Christ or whether the sun

8:46

arose, they replied that the country

8:49

was Christian and possessed churches.

8:51

But said, they quote, the sun does

8:54

not rise upon our countrymen. Our

8:56

land is little cheered by its beams.

8:58

We are contented with that twilight which

9:01

among you precedes the sunrise

9:03

or follows the sunset. Moreover,

9:06

a certain luminous country is seeing not

9:08

far distant from ours, and divided

9:10

from it by a very considerable river.

9:13

These and many other matters too numerous

9:16

to particularize. They are said to have recounted

9:18

to curious inquirers, let

9:21

everyone say as he pleases and

9:23

reason on such matters according to his abilities.

9:26

I feel no regret at having recorded

9:29

an event so prodigious and miraculous.

9:32

So that's the story. I know. Obviously

9:34

they were asked a whole lot of other questions, but it

9:36

tickles me that the ones that he was compelled to

9:38

write down here were do you believe

9:41

in Christ? And also does the sun exist

9:43

there? Uh?

9:46

Yeah, maybe they thought they were from another planet

9:48

the realm that's gonna come up. Yeah,

9:51

they're from Saturn. Clearly. Obviously

9:53

we're gonna take a quick break before

9:55

we get into some of the historical

9:58

elements that really eight

10:00

to this story.

10:07

Overall, Williams and Ralph's versions

10:09

of what happened with these Green children are

10:12

consistent with each other, although Williams is

10:14

a little bit longer and it has a few more details.

10:17

Both agreed that the children were taken to the home

10:19

of Lord Richard de Cown, who lived in

10:21

Whites, which is about six miles to the north

10:23

of a little pit. Williams mentioned

10:26

of this isn't a footnote, which we didn't

10:28

read, which is why it probably does not ring a bell. They

10:31

both talk about the children having green skin

10:33

and only eating beans, and eventually

10:35

assimilating with the rest of the community, with

10:38

the brother dying sometime after being baptized,

10:41

and unlike in the version we read, though, Ralph

10:43

makes it sound as though only the sister lived

10:45

long enough to tell their story. He

10:48

doesn't mention a particular name for where

10:50

they came from, and there's no certain luminous

10:52

country that they could see from their home. There's

10:55

also a slight difference in the two accounts concerning

10:57

how the children claimed that they came to be

11:00

in Wolpit. We read in William's

11:02

version that they had been tending the flocks before hearing

11:04

a loud noise, quotes such as we are now

11:07

accustomed to hear at St. Edmunds when the bells

11:09

are chiming, but they didn't otherwise

11:11

know how they had wound up in Wolpit. Ralph,

11:13

on the other hand, said the children reported

11:16

that they had become disoriented while tending

11:18

cattle, and they got lost, and then they

11:20

followed the sound of chiming bells

11:23

through a long series of underground passages

11:25

before emerge emerging from a cave

11:28

near Wolpit. So bells are involved in both

11:30

of them in a slightly different way.

11:33

One is sort of like they're hoping to get

11:36

home theoretically right, and

11:38

the other is just that they the bells

11:40

put them in some odd mental state, that

11:43

they went into a fugue state and traveled to

11:45

Wolpit. Yes, okay. The

11:47

two accounts do diverge in what happened

11:49

to the surviving sister of the pair as well.

11:52

So we read in William's account that she married a

11:54

man living in Lynn, but Ralph says

11:56

that she became a servant in Lord Richard de Cown's

11:59

house and of there for many years, not

12:02

necessarily happily, though he calls her

12:04

quote very wanton and impudent. Regardless,

12:08

William indicates that she was still living

12:10

when he wrote his chronicle down, and

12:12

there's been some discussion about exactly

12:15

when in the twelfth century this event might

12:17

have happened. William of

12:19

Newburgh lived from roughly eleven thirty

12:21

six to eleven His

12:23

version was probably written down towards

12:26

the end of his life. Ralph's

12:28

version made it into print after William's death

12:30

sometime around twelve twenty, so a

12:32

lot of times we think, okay, the later account

12:35

is probably not quite as accurate,

12:37

but even though Ralph's version was

12:39

written down later, he actually lived

12:41

a lot closer to Woolpit than William

12:44

did, and he said he had learned the story directly

12:46

from Lord Richard to count himself um,

12:49

whereas William was hearing

12:51

it all at least second hand. And

12:54

William notes that it was at harvest

12:56

time during the reign of King Stephen, which

12:59

was from five to eleven fifty

13:01

four. Ralph, on the other hand,

13:03

says that it took place during the reign of his

13:05

successor, Henry the Second, which was from

13:07

eleven fifty four to eleven eighty nine.

13:10

Author and archaeologist Brian Haughton

13:12

points out that there's no mention of the children

13:15

in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, which

13:17

documents English history up until Stephen's

13:20

death and includes a number of other

13:22

odd and wondrous stories. It's

13:24

certainly possible that the Green Children aren't

13:26

in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle because its authors

13:28

didn't know about it or just didn't think it

13:30

needed to be included. But if it's

13:32

not included because it hadn't happened yet,

13:35

that would put the time frame into Henry the

13:37

Second's reign rather than Stevens,

13:40

and regarding William's notation of it being

13:42

harvest time, the beans that they were eating

13:44

would have been broad beans, which are more

13:46

commonly known as s fava beans in the United States.

13:49

Those were picked around July in August,

13:51

so that's the approximate time of year,

13:54

and there is a lot to suggest that something

13:57

really did happen. The two

13:59

accounts seemed who have been written completely

14:01

independently of one another, and although

14:03

William does a bit of protesting about how

14:05

he knows that this story sounds unbelievable,

14:08

both men wrote as though they were documenting

14:11

a real event that actually happened.

14:13

At the same time, when both men were writing

14:16

purportedly mystical, supernatural

14:18

and miraculous events were a lot more likely

14:20

to be accepted at face value than they might

14:22

be today. It was pretty much

14:25

normal to write down something as odd as

14:27

two green children crawling out of a wolf pit

14:29

and just accepting the idea that something

14:32

supernatural was at work without

14:34

really having to examine it further. The

14:36

story of the Green Children of Wolpit definitely

14:39

stuck around into the thirteenth century,

14:41

and from there it became a little more obscure

14:44

outside the immediate area until the late

14:46

fifteen hundreds, when the first

14:48

printed edition of Williams Historia

14:51

Rim and Glacaram came out. A

14:53

new edition that came out in sixteen ten

14:55

also included Ralph's version to

14:57

the story as a compliments to Williams. With

15:00

that it started making more appearances

15:03

in written works by other authors, who

15:05

sometimes got understandably confused

15:07

about which version was Ralph's and which

15:09

which version was Williams. I in fact,

15:11

got few confused about that repeatedly

15:14

when working on this podcast. It's

15:16

easy to do retellings

15:19

of the story from the fifteenth century and

15:21

beyond. Also, we're not usually quite

15:23

as credulous as Ralph and William had

15:25

been. William Camden writing

15:27

in his work Britannia in six

15:29

is one example. Here's his description,

15:32

and I wish I could share all of the delightful

15:35

spelling in his description with everyone. It's

15:37

pretty great. It's pretty awesome. Wolp.

15:39

It is a market town which meant

15:42

merchant and soundeth as much

15:44

as the wolves Pit. And

15:46

if we may believe new Brigensis,

15:49

who had told as pretty and formal

15:51

a tale of the place as is that fable

15:54

called the True Narration of Lucian,

15:56

namely how two little boys

15:58

for suits of green color hand

16:00

of satyrs kind after they had made

16:02

a long journey by passages underground,

16:05

from out of another world, from

16:08

the antipoties in St. Martin's land,

16:10

came up here of whom you would

16:12

know more repair to the author himself,

16:15

where you will find such a matter as will

16:17

make you laugh, your phil if

16:19

you have a laughing spleen. I

16:22

feel like I definitely have a laughing spleen. I

16:24

think so yet that we

16:26

have um made that prognosis.

16:29

That's official. I will call my family doctor uh.

16:32

Newbrigensis was a name for William

16:35

of Newburgh. The quote True Narration

16:37

of Lucian is a second century

16:39

satire by Lucian of sam Asada

16:42

which details a trip to the moon that would

16:44

rival our great Moon Hoax episode. There's

16:47

a whole bit about men with dogs heads

16:49

that fight from winged acorns, and

16:52

flees as big as twelve elephants. Oh, that's

16:54

terrifying, and warriors armed

16:56

with radishes flung from slings. I

16:59

love all of this. This work is

17:01

obviously not meant to be taken as fact,

17:03

and Camden obviously does not take

17:05

the green children seriously at

17:07

all. From there the story

17:10

of the Green Children started to influence other

17:12

more fanciful works. Francis

17:14

Godwin, The Man in the

17:17

Moon, or a Discourse of a Voyage

17:19

thither, which he called a quote

17:21

essay of fancy, talks about

17:24

a novel disciplinary method

17:26

employed by parents on the moon where

17:28

they would send their unruly children down

17:30

to Earth and brings them earthly

17:32

children back in their place. And

17:35

in this whole story he made reference to quote

17:37

certain stories he had heard confirming

17:40

this idea it was true. And those

17:42

certain stories were Williams,

17:44

Historia, Retram and Lucaram. I

17:49

want to know what happened to the earthly kids that lived

17:51

on the moon. Did they

17:53

eventually get fed beans and turned

17:55

green? There's so many questions, he

17:57

might say, I didn't read the whole thing. The

18:00

Green Children have continued to make appearances

18:02

in fiction into the twentieth century and

18:04

beyond. Herbert Reid's novel

18:07

The Green Child came out in nineteen thirty

18:09

four. The Green Children of Bagnios,

18:12

set in Spain in eighteen eighty seven, was

18:14

part of John Macklin's nineteen sixty five

18:16

book Strange Destinies. The

18:19

Spanish setting is echoed in the nineteen seven

18:21

ten thousand Maniacs on Green Children,

18:24

which starts in August Day in the Hills

18:26

of Spain, a pair of children emerged

18:28

from a cave. And of course there are

18:30

lots of other stories and books and TV episodes

18:33

and the like that all draw from this as well.

18:35

And it's not totally clear whether

18:38

the Green Children are the inspiration for

18:40

the basic idea of Martians

18:42

as little green men, but they were

18:45

definitely described as green, and people

18:47

were also speculating that maybe they were aliens.

18:49

Early and as the sixteenth century and

18:52

outside of the world of fiction, the Green Children

18:54

also started being written about as folklore

18:57

in the nineteenth century. In eighteen

18:59

fifty, Thomas Kitelee included bits

19:01

of both Williams and Ralph's accounts

19:03

in his work Fairy Mythology.

19:06

This was the first time the story was available to

19:08

people who did not read Latin, and

19:10

since it was in a book by a folklorist called

19:12

Fairy Mythology, a lot of people

19:15

from this point assumed that story was inherently

19:17

folkloric. Sometimes they're

19:19

specifically fairies, such as in Catherine

19:22

Briggs Dictionary of Fairies, which

19:24

came out in nineteen seventy six. And

19:26

there are also people who interpret them as forest

19:28

spirits or personifications of nature.

19:31

I feel like the whole like fairy

19:34

myth right up through. Tinkerbell was very

19:36

informed by all of this. About

19:39

the same time as Kitele was documenting the story

19:42

as folklore, the Green Children were

19:44

also becoming more widely known to the general

19:47

public. In eighteen seventy five,

19:49

a guide book to East Anglia referenced

19:51

the Green Children, and then other mentions

19:53

and other travel guides followed, as

19:55

you know, interesting points of interests and interesting

19:58

tidbits about the place that you're visit it ng A

20:01

sign at will Pit honoring the story was

20:03

erected in nineteen seventy seven as

20:05

part of Queen Elizabeth Silver Jubilee,

20:07

and today the story is like they're

20:09

on the Village of Wilpit's web page. And

20:12

of course there are also a lot of

20:15

rational or not so rational explanations

20:18

for what was really going on here, and we're going to dive

20:20

into those possibilities after we first

20:22

paused for a little sponsor break.

20:30

So unsurprisingly,

20:33

there are lots of hypotheses about who the

20:35

Green Children were and where they came from.

20:38

One connects them to the Babes in

20:40

the Wood, which was first written down as a

20:42

ballad in and The

20:44

basic story of the Babes in the Wood

20:46

is that a very greedy uncle was guardian

20:49

to two young children and he was hoping

20:51

to steal their fortunes, so he hired some men

20:53

to take them into the woods and murder them.

20:56

As so often happens in these kinds of stories,

20:58

the men he hired didn't have the heart to do

21:00

it and abandoned them instead, so

21:03

in the story, they eventually starved. This

21:06

folk tale is typically set in Whyland

21:08

Wood, which is about thirty miles or forty

21:10

eight kilometers away from Woolpit, so

21:13

people suggesting that the Green Children were

21:15

really the Babes in the Wood just move

21:17

the location closer by. And

21:19

also about four hundred years earlier than

21:21

the ballads first written appearance. That

21:24

definitely doesn't mean the ballad didn't exist

21:26

earlier, but like four years

21:29

of a long time for a ballad to go without

21:31

being written down, or story to go without

21:34

being written down, at least by this point in history.

21:37

So compounding the kind of

21:39

far fetchedness of this explanation is

21:41

they go to rationale for why they were green,

21:45

which is chlorosis, otherwise known

21:47

as green sickness. Now, while

21:49

there are rare forms of

21:51

anemia that can cause a person

21:53

to have a kind of greenish pallor, along

21:56

with the idea that people who are really nauseated

21:58

are described as looking sometimes green

22:02

sickness is not that. Green

22:05

sickness was described in medical literature

22:07

from the sixteenth to late nineteenth century.

22:10

It was diagnosed almost exclusively in young

22:13

women, and it was also called the virgin's

22:15

disease. The symptoms

22:17

included things like restlessness, irritability,

22:20

fatigue, too little appetite, too

22:22

much appetite, indigestion,

22:24

headache, and an absence of menstrual

22:26

periods. Treatments included

22:29

blood letting, marriage always

22:32

on a prescription pad, and

22:35

medicines to bring on menstrual flow. To

22:38

be clear, marriage really meant

22:40

sex in this case, And there are some extremely

22:43

suggestive ballads dating back to the sixteenth

22:45

and seventeen centuries about

22:47

treatments, and we're using the air quotes there

22:49

for green sickness. There's actually a

22:51

Sawbones episode about green sickness if

22:53

you want to hear a whole lot more about this. It

22:56

also does not really take a lot of

22:58

Google effort to find these

23:01

extremely suggestive ballads, ballads about

23:03

how to treat green sickness.

23:06

So obviously they probably

23:08

didn't have green sickness, because that's

23:10

not a real thing. Right. And

23:13

also those in in this

23:15

sort of combination story of the green

23:17

children in the babes in the wood, the folks who

23:19

don't suggest that maybe they had clurosis

23:22

often suggest that maybe the hired men did

23:24

actually try to kill them using arsenic,

23:27

that they had survived with the arsenic had turned

23:29

their skin green. This is a

23:31

weird conflation of sort of two different

23:34

historical things. While arsenic has

23:36

definitely been used to make green

23:38

dies, it was typically exposure

23:41

to those diyes that made a

23:43

person's skin turned green, not

23:46

surviving an attempt to be poisoned with

23:48

it. Right, Arsenic in itself

23:50

does not carry that pigment right to a

23:52

person's person. I guess if you tried

23:54

to murder someone with green dye, which

23:57

you could have done, you could have done, then

23:59

you have green skin. You'll

24:02

be so fashionable and deceased.

24:04

Yeah, that would be a weird way to murder

24:07

people. I'll make a great story for any

24:09

of our writers out there. You just take that one, ather. Uh.

24:12

The idea that the Green children might have

24:15

been aliens, which I love, goes

24:17

all the way back to William Camden, who

24:19

suggested that they were either Satyrs

24:21

meaning wild men, or Antipodeans

24:24

meaning aliens. Robert

24:26

Burton also made a passing reference to the idea

24:28

that they may have come from another planet in

24:31

Anatomy of Melancholy, which was published

24:33

in sixteen twenty one. So the

24:35

aliens hypothesis has been around for

24:37

a really long time and it has persisted

24:40

to the present. In article

24:43

in Analog, which is a science fiction magazine,

24:46

Duncan Lunin asserted that they were from

24:48

a human colony on an alien planet,

24:51

sent here through a malfunctioning transporter,

24:54

and this explanation also involves the Knights

24:56

Templar in some way. This

24:58

is one of the few things I didn't actually you get to read for

25:00

myself all the way through, some relying on someone else's

25:03

synopsis of it. But uh.

25:05

Interestingly, in a much more

25:07

down to earth portion of this article,

25:10

he also pieced together

25:12

a family treat for Richard to count and

25:14

claims that the surviving sister

25:16

was baptized as Agnes and that the

25:18

man she married was a royal official named

25:20

Richard Barr. So that's

25:22

a fascinating, possibly

25:25

totally legit historical fact in

25:27

the context of this overall aliens

25:30

article with the Knights Templar involved,

25:33

I wonder if that means that someone could trace

25:35

their alien heritage all the way back

25:37

to Agnes and you could know that you are part

25:40

from another planet, which you really

25:42

all are, because we're all made to start us to some

25:44

degree. True story, we're all aliens.

25:47

The most complete practical explanation

25:49

for what might have happened came from Paul

25:52

Harris in and that

25:54

was published in forty in Studies, which is

25:56

an offshoot of forty Times. I

25:58

actually used a lot of writing

26:00

from one of the editors there for our

26:02

Devil's Footprints episode. Uh.

26:04

And that's a magazine that's devoted to strange

26:07

phenomena. And he suggests that

26:09

all of this really happened in eleven seventy

26:11

three in the Reign of Henry the Second.

26:14

In brief, Harris suggests

26:16

that these were the children of Flemish immigrants

26:19

and that their parents were killed at the Battle

26:21

of Fornhum in eleven seventy three.

26:23

The St. Martin's Land that the

26:26

sister referred to was Fornhum St

26:28

Martin, roughly ten miles or sixteen

26:30

kilometers from Woolpits. They're not that far away

26:33

and also not far from the River Lark,

26:35

so there would have been a river nearby. According

26:38

to this theory, they escaped

26:40

the battle, and then the two children fled

26:42

into Thetford forest and took refuge

26:45

in flint mines there before

26:47

following the bells from Barry St Edmund's

26:50

to find their way out and make their way to Woolpit.

26:52

So their unknown tongue and clothing

26:54

were just Flemish and their skin was

26:56

greenish due to malnutrition due

26:58

to this extended time of being abandoned

27:01

and wandering in flint mines. That

27:04

all holds up. Uh. It all

27:06

sounds like it fits so very well, But of

27:08

course there are a few problems. One,

27:11

the Flemish people killed at for Hum were

27:13

mercenaries hired to fight with English

27:16

rebels against Henry the Seconds Forces.

27:18

Mercenaries generally, as a rule, did

27:20

not bring their children with them into battle.

27:23

Uh. Two, it seems unlikely that no

27:25

one around Wolpit spoke Flemish

27:28

or some other version of Dutch, at least

27:30

enough to spot it as a known language

27:32

rather than some unrecognizable tongue.

27:35

Three, the river Lark isn't really

27:37

that big and even to a child's eye,

27:40

it's probably not quote a very

27:42

considerable river. So that descriptor does

27:44

not really hold up. And for

27:46

this Fornhum to Thetford to Bury St

27:49

Edmund's to Woolpit trek really

27:51

goes way out of the way. It's actually a total

27:53

of about thirty miles or fifty two kilometers,

27:56

the first leg of it going in nearly

27:58

the direct opposite direction from Wolpit.

28:01

Thattford is also way too far away from

28:03

Barry st Edmund's to hear the bells

28:05

from there. Also, want a

28:08

lot more just immediate non

28:11

synchronization in the descriptions. That

28:13

battle happened in October. So

28:16

unless those two kids wandered

28:19

for months and months and months before

28:21

arriving in Wolpit, like, there would not have been

28:23

any fresh beans harvest

28:26

and that because you'll remember that was what June

28:28

July, I think July August was

28:30

when they are generally harvested. That's

28:33

nine months including

28:35

winter, right with two tiny

28:38

children. Yeah, so malnourished,

28:40

tiny children. So it's

28:42

a mystery. Maybe

28:44

they made the Devil's footprints. Maybe so

28:48

sick little side trip play a little frank time

28:51

traveled seven

28:53

years maybe or some other number

28:55

of years, depending which account you ready. So

28:59

pretty much all of a historical um

29:02

accounts, and then also a lot

29:04

of the his like farther

29:06

back in the past. Works of fiction that we talked

29:08

about today are all on the internet for

29:10

free, and they will all be linked from our show

29:13

notes to this episode. If you just

29:15

really want to go read either a

29:17

colossally long history

29:19

of the Church in England

29:21

as translated UH in

29:23

the nineteenth century, or if you just want to read

29:26

some weird science

29:28

fictionesque stories about the moon written

29:30

in the distant past, Like that's all there. Who

29:33

doesn't want to read those? I kind of do the whole

29:35

thing about the flying acorns and the dog faced

29:37

people and the the specifically

29:40

multiple number of elephants that the fleas

29:42

were as big as it's all, But people

29:44

are pretty much on their own if they want to go looking for

29:46

the dirty ballads? Is that where we decided the

29:49

Dirty Ballads are not linked into one

29:54

of them is definitely not safe for work.

29:57

Um. But so, as I was trying

30:00

to put together some thoughts about green sickness.

30:03

I found a larger

30:05

than I would expect number of just very

30:07

incredulous papers published

30:09

in journals that were like, do you think green

30:12

sickness could have been caused by malnutrition?

30:14

No? I think green sickness probably was

30:16

caused by misogyny.

30:18

But

30:21

but one of them like this,

30:24

it started out seeming like

30:27

they were genuinely asking whether there was some

30:29

kind of organic mechanism

30:31

at work, and then the conclusion was like

30:33

no, really, like people just got really into

30:36

Hippocrates and started making

30:39

these Hippocratic diagnoses, and

30:41

that's why it suddenly enters this historical

30:43

record at this time and leaves and this time.

30:45

But it was through that one article that I found

30:48

this particularly risk a

30:51

ballad which you know, if you're

30:53

an adult person with kind of a skewed sense

30:55

of humor, it is always

30:58

funny to me and a little a

31:00

little bit of a silly and almost borderline

31:02

charming way to read sort of dirty

31:05

writing. And I'm again I'm using the air quotes

31:07

from really olden times

31:10

because their choice of words is just very funny

31:12

to today's year, and that's what makes

31:14

it hilarious. Yeah, So I

31:16

don't know. If you try to search for this yourself and

31:19

you come up with with

31:21

no responses, just send us an email history

31:23

podcast at how stuff works dot com. I will tell

31:25

you where to find it. Tracy is going to

31:27

peddle the dirty paddles. You

31:31

have listener mail that is not a dirty valid

31:33

I sure do, and it's not dirty

31:35

yet. All Kyle

31:37

sent us a note, and Kyle says,

31:40

Ladies, I would like to start off by saying, this

31:42

is my first time writing in, but I love your podcast

31:45

and listen to it all the time at work. I'm a huge

31:47

history buff and I'm always fascinated

31:49

how the actions and events surrounding a single

31:51

person can affect the entire world of billions.

31:54

Three perfect examples of this were in

31:56

your episode three Nuclear Close Calls.

31:59

They were very intra stories about how people

32:01

in the Cold War prevented armageddon through

32:03

quick thinking and faith and their fellow

32:05

humans. I'm sure I won't be the only person

32:07

to write in about this, but news just came in a few

32:09

hours ago confirming the death of Stanislav

32:12

Petrov, one of the three people featured in the podcast.

32:15

He passed away in May, according to multiple

32:17

sources, but most people are just learning

32:19

of it now. He was the perfect

32:21

example of how the level headed thinking of one

32:23

individual can and did save the

32:25

world as we know it today. I was

32:27

born after the incident which happened in three

32:30

but I can say with confidence that I and

32:32

so many more would not be alive if not for

32:34

his actions. And then Uh

32:37

notes that his parents lived in a city that, as I

32:39

probably would have been a target. The

32:42

world owes Mr Petrov and so many others

32:44

like him a tremendous debt, and I am glad

32:46

that now, if delayed, many mainstream media

32:48

outlets are publishing stories about his deeds.

32:51

Keep up the great work your podcast keep

32:53

me saye during some of my most tedious hours

32:55

at work. So thanks for that. And then

32:57

he included some links to stories about

32:59

the death of Stanislav Petrov.

33:02

Thank you so much, Kyle. That music

33:04

came UH to the four.

33:06

It's true. It was like back in May that he that

33:09

he died. Um, but this

33:11

news started to circulate while I was on vacation

33:14

and Holly was at Salt Lake Comic Con, so it

33:16

was like we were not really at our desks to

33:18

just spread the word on our social media

33:20

or whatever. So I want to take the opportunity to note

33:23

it in the show today. Yeah,

33:25

thanks Kyle, Yeah, thank you very much.

33:28

Thanks to everyone else who's written us awesome

33:30

notes about things

33:33

or queries about where we have found

33:35

things on our on our show. So

33:37

if you would like to write to us or at history podcasts

33:40

at how stuff works dot com. We're also on

33:42

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33:45

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33:47

at missed in History

33:49

And if you come to our website, which is missed

33:51

in History dot com, there's a searchable

33:53

archive of all the episodes that have ever been on the show.

33:56

There are show notes for all the episodes that

33:58

Holly and I have ever done. There are

34:00

lots of tags that we have and you can click on

34:02

on our website and that will take you to lots

34:05

of other episodes that are about that same subject.

34:08

So there's a whole lot you can do if you come to miss

34:10

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34:16

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