Английская Википедия:Green children of Woolpit
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The legend of the green children of Woolpit concerns two children of unusual skin colour who reportedly appeared in the village of Woolpit in Suffolk, England, sometime in the 12th century, perhaps during the reign of King Stephen (Шаблон:Reign). The children, found to be brother and sister, were of generally normal appearance except for the green colour of their skin. They spoke in an unknown language and would eat only raw broad beans. Eventually, they learned to eat other food and lost their green colour, but the boy was sickly and died soon after his sister was baptized. The girl adjusted to her new life, but she was considered to be "very wanton and impudent". After she learned to speak English, the girl explained that she and her brother had come from a land where the sun never shone, and the light was like twilight. According to one version of the story, she said that everything there was green; according to another, she said it was called Saint Martin's Land.
The only near-contemporary accounts are contained in William of Newburgh's Historia rerum Anglicarum and Ralph of Coggeshall's Chronicum Anglicanum, written in about 1189 and 1220, respectively. Between then and their rediscovery in the mid-19th century, the green children seem to surface only in a passing mention in William Camden's Britannia in 1586, and in two works from the early 17th century, Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy and Bishop Francis Godwin's fantastical The Man in the Moone. Two approaches have dominated explanations of the story of the green children: that it is a folktale describing an imaginary encounter with the inhabitants of another world, perhaps subterranean or extraterrestrial, or it presents a real event in a garbled manner. The story was praised as an ideal fantasy by the English anarchist poet and critic Herbert Read in his English Prose Style, first published in 1928, and provided the inspiration for his only novel, The Green Child, published in 1935.
Sources
The village of Woolpit is in the county of Suffolk, East Anglia, about Шаблон:Convert east of the town of Bury St Edmunds. During the Middle Ages it belonged to the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds, and was part of one of the most densely populated areas in rural England. Two writers, Ralph of Coggeshall (died c. 1226) and William of Newburgh (c. 1136–1198), reported on the sudden and unexplained arrival in the village of two green children during one summer in the 12th century. Ralph was the abbot of Cistercian Coggeshall Abbey at Coggeshall, about Шаблон:Convert south of Woolpit. William was a canon at the Augustinian Newburgh Priory, far to the north in Yorkshire. William states that the account given in his Historian rerum Anglicarum (c. 1189) is based on "reports from a number of trustworthy sources"; Ralph, writing his Chronicum Anglicanum in the 1220s, drew on the account of Sir Richard de Calne of Wykes,Шаблон:Refn who supposedly sheltered the children in his manor house, Шаблон:Convert north of Woolpit.Шаблон:Sfn
While it was common for medieval chroniclers to copy others' passages verbatim—often with little or no attributionШаблон:Sfn—the accounts given by the two authors differ in some details.Шаблон:Sfn Michał Madej, of Jagiellonian University, does not believe that William or Ralph had seen the other's manuscripts when they told the story of the Green Children. He also argues that while Ralph was based approximately Шаблон:Convert from Woolpit, William "recorded it virtually from the other side of England",Шаблон:Sfn making it even more unlikely that the former would have had any reason to copy from the latter. Furthermore, Ralph names his sources, whereas William states he heard the tale from "unnamed persons".Шаблон:Sfn John Clark has suggested that it is possible that Richard de Calne was the source for both writers, and that, while William was the more distant, he was likely to have had contacts with the Augustinian Thetford Abbey.Шаблон:Sfn While Ralph was closer geographically, however, he was writing decades after William. Although William was writing relatively soon after the events depicted, Campbell has suggested that his writing is "hemmed around with doubts" as to what he is writing: although he states Шаблон:Lang, this can translate as along the lines of "I am compelled to believe", but literally "I am crushed sufficiently that I am forced to believe it".Шаблон:Sfn
Story
At harvest time one day during the reign of King Stephen (Шаблон:Reign), according to William of Newburgh,Шаблон:Sfn the villagers of Woolpit discovered two children, a brother and sister, beside one of the wolf pits that gave the village its name.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Refn Their skin was green, they spoke an unknown language, and their clothing was unfamiliar. Ralph of Coggeshall reports that the children were taken to the home of Richard de Calne. Ralph and William agree that the pair refused all food for several days until they came across some raw broad beans, which they consumed eagerly. The children gradually adapted to normal food and in time lost their green colour.Шаблон:Sfn It was decided to baptise the children, but the boy, who appeared to be the younger of the two, was sickly and died before or soon after baptism.
After learning to speak English, the children—Ralph says just the surviving girl—explained that they came from a land where the sun never shone and the light was like twilight. William says the girl called their home St Martin's Land; Ralph adds that everything there was green. According to William, the children were unable to account for their arrival in Woolpit; they had been herding their father's cattle when they heard a loud noise (according to William, it was like the sound of the bells of Bury St Edmunds abbeyШаблон:Sfn) and suddenly found themselves by the wolf pit where they were found. Ralph says that they had become lost when they followed the cattle into a cave and, after being guided by the sound of bells, eventually emerged into our land.Шаблон:Sfn
According to Ralph, the girl was employed for many years as a servant in Richard de Calne's household, where she was considered to be "very wanton and impudent". William says that she eventually married a man from King's Lynn, about Шаблон:Convert from Woolpit, where she was still living shortly before he wrote.Шаблон:Sfn Based on his research into Richard de Calne's family history, the astronomer and writer Duncan Lunan has concluded that the girl was given the name 'Agnes' and that she married a royal official named Richard Barre.Шаблон:Sfn
Explanations
Neither Ralph of Coggeshall nor William of Newburgh offer an explanation for the "strange and prodigious" event, as William calls it, and some modern historians have the same reticence: "I consider the process of worrying over the suggestive details of these wonderfully pointless miracles in an effort to find natural or psychological explanations of what 'really,' if anything, happened, to be useless to the study of William of Newburgh or, for that matter, of the Middle Ages", says Nancy Partner, author of a study of 12th-century historiography.Шаблон:Sfn Nonetheless, such explanations continue to be sought and two approaches have dominated explanations of the mystery of the green children. The first is that the narrative descends from folklore, describing an imaginary encounter with the inhabitants of a "fairy Otherworld".Шаблон:Sfn In a few earlyШаблон:Sfn as well as modern readings, this other world is extraterrestrial, and the green children alien beings.Шаблон:Sfn The second is that it is a "garbled account" of a real event,Шаблон:Sfn although it is impossible to be certain whether the story as recorded is an authentic report given by the children or an "adult invention".Шаблон:Sfn His study of the story led Charles Oman to conclude that "there is clearly some mystery behind it all, some story of drugging and kidnapping".Шаблон:Sfn Medievalist Jeffrey Jerome Cohen offers a different kind of historical explanation, arguing that the story is an oblique account of the racial difference between the English and the indigenous Britons.Шаблон:Sfn
Folklore
Twentieth-century scholars of folklore such as Charles Oman noted that one element of the children's account, the entry into a different reality by way of a cave, seems to have been quite popular. Gerald of Wales, the medieval historian, tells a similar story of a boy, a truant from school, who "encountered two pigmies who led him through an underground passage into a beautiful land with fields and rivers, but not lit by the full light of the sun".Шаблон:Sfn But the specific motif that refers to the green children is poorly attested; E. W. Baughman lists it as the only example of his F103.1 category of English and North American folktale motifs: "Inhabitants of lower world visit mortals, and continue to live with them".Шаблон:Sfn Madej has similarly argued that the tale of the Green Children was part of a popular skein of imagination, "originating in the territories of England and Wales, that of passing through a cave to another world".Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Refn
Martin Walsh identifies the story of the green children as "a garbled account of an atavistic harvest ritual".Шаблон:Sfn He considers the references to St Martin to be significant, and sees the story as evidence that the feast of Martinmas has its origins in an English aboriginal past, of which the children's story forms "the lowest stratum".Шаблон:Sfn However, John Clark casts doubt on Walsh's conclusions, arguing that there is no evidence of St Martin as "a figure with Otherworld connections",Шаблон:Sfn or to connect the children with "an atavistic harvest ritual".Шаблон:Sfn Madej connects the hypothetical St Martin's land with the saint himself,Шаблон:Sfn echoing Anne Witte who had previously argued for a connection between St Martin and the underworld. Medieval folklore closely associated him with symbols of death, such as his being mounted on a horse—a common psychopomp of the period—and his carrying a stick symbolising resurrection.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Refn He also suggests that the two children may represent, simultaneously, life and death, similarly to the near-contemporaneous tales of the Green Knight. The children's pigmentation change "would symbolise the passing from death to life, the revival occurring overground".Шаблон:Sfn
The eating of beans has also attracted the attention of folklorists. "It is to be noticed, too, that the habitual food of the children was beans, the food of the dead", observes K. M. Briggs.Шаблон:Sfn She had made the same observation about the food of the dead in her 1967 book "The Fairies in English Tradition and Literature",Шаблон:Sfn but John Clark casts doubt on the supposed tradition that Briggs is referring to, commenting that "an identification of beans as the food of the dead is unwarranted".Шаблон:Sfn However, he agrees that "beans are in many cultures associated with the dead", and Madej argues that not only had broad beans "been the symbol of death and corruption since the ancient timesШаблон:Nbsp... they were also associated with opposite phenomena, such as rebirth and fertility".Шаблон:Sfn
A modern version of the tale links the green children with the Babes in the Wood. Although there are differing stories, a common motif is that they are left or taken to die in the woods—often identified as Wayland Wood or Thetford Forest—after being poisoned with arsenic by their uncle. The arsenical poisoning resulted in their colouration; they became further linked with the Woolpit children after escaping the woods, but falling into the pits before their ultimate discovery. This version of the story was known to local author and folk singer Bob Roberts, who says in his 1978 book A Slice of Suffolk "I was told there are still people in Woolpit who are 'descended from the green children', but nobody would tell me who they were!"Шаблон:Sfn
Other commentators have suggested that the children may have been aliens, or inhabitants of a world beneath the Earth. Robert Burton suggested in his 1621 Шаблон:Nowrap that the green children "fell from Heaven", an idea that seems to have been picked up by Francis Godwin, historian and Bishop of Hereford, in his speculative fiction The Man in the Moone, published posthumously in 1638, which draws on William of Newburgh's account.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn
Historical explanations
In 1998 Paul Harris argued for a "down to earth" explanation of the green children in the context of 12th-century history.Шаблон:Sfn He identifies them as the children of Flemish immigrants, who arrived in eastern England during the early 12th century and were later persecuted after Henry II became king in 1154.Шаблон:Sfn He proposes that the children's homeland of "St Martin's Land" was the village of Fornham St Martin, just north of Bury St Edmunds, and suggests that their parents were Flemish clothworkers settled there.Шаблон:Sfn Furthermore, in 1173 Fornham was the site of the Battle of Fornham, during the civil war between King Henry II and his son "the Young King Henry". Rebel forces led by Robert de Beaumont, 3rd Earl of Leicester, together with a large number of Flemish mercenaries, had landed in Suffolk, but were defeated by royal forces on the banks of the River Lark. The Flemish mercenaries were slaughtered, and Harris suggests that there might have been violence against peaceful Flemish settlers in the area.Шаблон:Sfn The children may have fled and ultimately wandered to Woolpit. Disoriented, bewildered, speaking no English and dressed in unfamiliar Flemish clothes, the children would have presented a very strange spectacle to the Woolpit villagers. Harris believed that the children's colour could be explained by hypochromic anemia (also known as chlorosis or green sickness), the result of a dietary deficiency.Шаблон:Sfn
In a follow-up article, John Clark drew attention to some problems with Harris’s use of the historical evidence, and remained unconvinced by the identification of the children as Flemings or their colour as due to green sickness.Шаблон:Sfn Brian Haughton describes Harris's hypothesis as "the most widely accepted explanation at present" and maintains that it "certainly suggests plausible answers to many of the riddles of the Woolpit mystery".Шаблон:Sfn However, he concludes that "the theory of displaced Flemish orphans ... does not stand up in many respects". For instance, he suggests it is unlikely that an educated man like Richard de Calne would not have recognised the language spoken by the children as being Flemish.Шаблон:Sfn Similarly, concerning green sickness, Madej counters that much of the contemporary population should probably have suffered from the same disease, and also appeared green; "the tone of green of the children's skin must have been something unprecedented and unusual."Шаблон:Sfn
Historian Derek Brewer's explanation is even more prosaic: Шаблон:Blockquote
Jeffrey Jerome Cohen proposes that the story is about racial difference, and "allows William to write obliquely about the Welsh".Шаблон:Sfn He argues that the green children are a memory of England's past and the conquest of the indigenous Britons by the Anglo-Saxons followed by the Norman invasion. William of Newburgh—reluctantly, suggests CohenШаблон:Sfn—includes the story of the green children in his account of a largely unified, homogenous England.Шаблон:Sfn Cohen juxtaposes William of Newburgh's account of the green children with Geoffrey of Monmouth's The History of the Kings of Britain, a book that according to William is full of "gushing and untrammeled lying".Шаблон:Sfn Geoffrey's history offers accounts of previous kings and kingdoms of various ethnic identities, whereas William's England is one in which all peoples are either assimilated or pushed to the boundaries. According to Cohen, the green children represent a dual intrusion into William's unified vision of England. On one hand they are a reminder of the ethnic and cultural differences between Normans and Anglo-Saxons, given the children's claim to have come from St Martin's Land, named after Martin of Tours; the only other time William mentions that saint is in reference to Шаблон:Nowrap in Hastings, which commemorates the Norman victory in 1066.Шаблон:Sfn But the children also embody the earlier inhabitants of the British Isles, the "Welsh (and Irish and Scots) who [had been] forcibly anglicized ...Шаблон:NbspThe Green Children resurface in another story that William had been unable to tell, one in which English paninsular dominion becomes a troubled assumption rather than a foregone conclusion."Шаблон:Sfn The boy in particular, who dies rather than become assimilated, represents "an adjacent world that cannot be annexed ...Шаблон:Nbspan otherness that will perish to endure".Шаблон:Sfn
Historians have suggested motivations for the two monastic authors. Ruch, and Gordon, have proposed episodes such as the Green Children are comments on the main historical narrative.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn The medievalist Catherine Clarke argues that although these stories "have often been dismissed as strange folkloric diversions or playfulness",Шаблон:Sfn they are not random interpolations of fantasy but actually play a central role in his overall narrative.Шаблон:Sfn Often a reaction to the trauma of the Anarchy, Clarke says, Newburgh's musings on the fantastic all combine the common theme of "normal experience disturbed by something which cannot be fully reached or grasped through reason".Шаблон:Sfn Elizabeth Freeman, commenting on Ralph's account, similarly notes that his stories "commonly treated as light entertainment, are in fact united by their treatment of a common theme", albeit one being "the threat posed by outsiders to the unity of the Christian community".Шаблон:Sfn Carl Watkins has commented on the demonization, literally and figuratively, of the girl in William's account,Шаблон:Sfn while James Plumtree has viewed the narratives as twelfth century historiographic digressions "that permits a didactic theological exegesis".Шаблон:Sfn
Publication and legacy
The story reappeared in the early modern period with the first printed edition of William of Newburgh's Historia rerum Anglicarum in the late 16th century. Briefly commenting on the story in 1586, William Camden considered it a hoax.Шаблон:Sfn A second edition of the Historia rerum Anglicarum in 1610 printed both Newburgh's and Coggeshall's texts of the story together for comparison. In contrast to Camden, however, Robert Burton—writing in 1621—asserted that not only was the story true, but that the children had fallen from the moon. This view was shared by Francis Godwin, Bishop of Hereford, around the same time in his science fiction story of a journey to the Moon The Man in the Moone, published posthumously in 1638. Madej notes that, as Godwin was writing fiction, he "did not treat the Woolpit tale with much earnestness, unlike R. Burton".Шаблон:Sfn Godwin makes a single specific reference to William of Newburgh, but Poole notes that "the level of detail derived from William of Newburgh's chapter on this prodigy is greater than Godwin's sole reference suggests".Шаблон:Sfn Clark elaborates on this, noting in particular that the lunar inhabitants have a veneration for Saint Martin similar to that attributed by the children to their homeland.Шаблон:Sfn
The tale resurfaced in the mid-Victorian period when the folklorist Thomas Keightley included it in The Fairy Mythology—its first publication in English.Шаблон:Sfn
The English anarchist poet and critic Herbert Read describes the story of the green children in his English Prose Style, first published in 1928, as "the norm to which all types of fantasy should conform".Шаблон:Sfn It was the inspiration for his only novel, The Green Child, published in 1935.Шаблон:Sfn
Author John Macklin includes an account in his 1965 book, Strange Destinies, of two green children who arrived in the Spanish village of Banjos in 1887.Шаблон:Sfn Many details of the story very closely resemble the accounts given of the Woolpit children, such as the name of Ricardo de Calno, the mayor of Banjos who befriends the two children, strikingly similar to Richard de Calne.Шаблон:Sfn It is clear that Macklin's story is an invention inspired by the green children of Woolpit,Шаблон:Sfn particularly as there is no record of any Spanish village called Banjos.Шаблон:Sfn
The green children tale was the inspiration for J. H. Prynne's 1976 poem "The Land of Saint Martin".Шаблон:Sfn Prynne never acknowledges this directly, however, merely alluding to it tangentially in his epigraph, a "fairly free rendering", says critic N. H. Reeve, of William of Newburgh's Latin text:Шаблон:Sfn
Australian novelist and poet Randolph Stow uses the account of the green children in his 1980 novel The Girl Green as Elderflower; the green girl is the source for the title character, here a blonde girl with green eyes. The green children become a source of interest to the main character, Crispin Clare, along with some other characters from the Latin accounts of William of Newburgh, Gervase of Tilbury, and others, and Stow includes translations from those texts: these characters "have histories of loss and dispossession that echo [Clare's] own".Шаблон:Sfn
In 1996 English poet Glyn Maxwell wrote a verse play based on the story of the green children, Wolfpit (the earlier name for WoolpitШаблон:Sfn), which was performed by the Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in that year.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn It has been performed more recently in New York City. In Maxwell's version the girl becomes an indentured servant to the lord of the manor, until a stranger named Juxon buys her freedom and takes her to an unknown destination.Шаблон:Sfn
The tale has been the basis for several 20th- and 21st-century children's books and stories, including Judith Stinton's Tom's Tale from 1983,Шаблон:Sfn a trilogy by Mark Bartholomew in 2006 and 2007Шаблон:Sfn and The Green Children of Woolpit by J. Anderson Coats in 2019.Шаблон:Sfn Children's author and poet Kevin Crossley-Holland has returned to the theme several times.Шаблон:Sfn His book The Green Children, published in 1966, stays basically faithful to the early chroniclers.Шаблон:Sfn His 1994 adaptation of the story tells it from the point of view of the green girl.Шаблон:Sfn Fantasy/science fiction authors John Crowley (in 1981) and Terri Windling (in 1995) have both published short stories for adults based on the green children.Шаблон:Sfn
Music
The green children are the subject of a 1990 community opera performed by children and adults, composed by Nicola LeFanu with a libretto by Crossley-Holland.Шаблон:Sfn The piece features lacunae for a child orchestra to insert its own material.Шаблон:Sfn
An Anglo-Norwegian band, The Green Children, took their name—and that of their charity foundation—from the story. Composed of Milla Fay Sunde, from Norway, and Marlow Bevan from the UK, the band's music has been described as "atmospheric electropop".Шаблон:Sfn
Notes
References
Citations
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