The Green Children of Woolpit: Chronicles, Fairies and Facts in Medieval England

I am loathe to begin this review with another rehashing of the story of the green children, but for those not familiar with it, some context is essential. In the twelfth century, according to accounts by the chroniclers Ralph of Coggeshall and William of Newburgh, a boy and a girl mysteriously appeared in the village of Woolpit, Suffolk, in England. They had green skin, wore strange clothing, and spoke an unintelligible language. At first, they refused all food except raw beans, but eventually ate “normal” food and gradually lost their green color. The boy died but the girl survived.John Clark has long been fascinated with this medieval wonder tale and its legacy, including its transition into a staple of Forteana. He has assembled and dissected treatments of the green children story in published articles since his first venture (responding to an article by Paul Harris) in 1999. This book brings together his existing research and counter-theories alongside new material to provide a thorough and multifaceted account of the story, its treatment, and development over the centuries. Following an introductory chapter that establishes his interest in and acquaintance with the story, Clark begins chapter 2, “The Story and Its Legacy,” with a version of the narrative, drawing directly upon (and briefly identifying differences in) Ralph’s and William’s accounts and summarizing the story’s legacy. In chapter 3, “Transmission,” he extends this by mapping the story’s transmission (and omissions) from the writings of antiquarians John Leland and William Camden through to contemporary retellings and reworkings. This is a significant and fascinating chapter of the book that serves as a discursive taxonomy of the story’s variations and as a comprehensive literature review of its creative afterlife. Clark includes well-known retellings by Herbert Read (1935), Kevin Crossley-Holland (1966), and Randolph Stow (1980) alongside more obscure outings and potential projects, including electropop duo TGC (abbreviated from The Green Children), the glimpse of a potential Britten opera that never came to fruition, and a poem by J. H. Prynne, all of which serve to beckon the curious down various internet rabbit holes. (For those wishing to follow his lead, Clark gives a chronological listing in the appendix.)Also in chapter 3 Clark identifies the emergence of the green children story into the realm of folklore studies. The version included in Thomas Keightley’s Fairy Mythology (2nd ed., 1850) became a standard form of the story for folklorists. Keightley’s version—adapted through a “complex of borrowings” that Clark painstakingly unpicks—is variously reprinted in folktale compendia and adopted by folklorists thereafter. Clark sets out the lineage of Keightley’s version, which is apparently responsible for ongoing framings of the green children as fairies; although later in the book Clark considers the otherworldliness of the children to the medieval mind, from the villagers of Woolpit, who discover them to the local lord Richard de Calne (who takes them in), to the medieval chroniclers themselves. One lost folklore motif is the trope of fairies refusing human food: Clark notes that a key line from Ralph’s account about the green girl’s belief in the inedibility of human food does not appear in Keightley’s version and is therefore missing in those folklorists’ analyses that depend upon it. (The significance of the beans themselves has been the subject of much contention, as Clark discusses later.) Another important point of transmission is Joseph Stevenson’s 1861 translation of William’s chronicle, which enables greater study of his version of the story; from there, the story becomes firmly embedded in Suffolk folklore.Through the book, Clark maps the story of the green children against Stith Thompson’s Motif-Index of Folk-Literature (1955–1958), identifying and building on the work of such folklore researchers as William Dutt, Katharine Briggs, Jacqueline Simpson and Steve Roud, and Francis Young. In chapter 4, “Interpretations,” he outlines commentaries offered by folklorists alongside perspectives by academic historians, including Jeffrey J. Cohen and Elizabeth Freeman. Clark also addresses some of the more outrageously speculative treatments of the green children story, such as Duncan Lunan’s bizarre assertion that the children were human abductees teleported from a space colony (54), their color the result of consuming dyed or genetically modified foods (126–27).Given the wealth of existing literature, it is unsurprising that Clark takes the first four chapters to set out his stall, returning to the medieval chroniclers in chapter 5, “The Chroniclers and the Texts.” Many existing interpretations of the green children’s story, he claims, rely on secondary sources, fail to recognize differences between Ralph’s and William’s accounts, and lack any detailed analysis of the story. His intention here is “to remedy this situation . . . put the study of this strange story on a sounder footing, and to review critically some of the many interpretations” (60). He does not intend to attempt an “explanation” of the children themselves. Clark’s own dogged determination to exhaust all avenues of inquiry is evident in the breadth and variety of his investigations, but he achieves his purpose by treating Ralph’s and William’s accounts together as the lodestar by which all theories are to be navigated. By providing his own translations of the medieval chronicles from the Latin—which he places in the appendix, eschewing any attempt to reflect the stylistic flourishes or signature tones of the authors—Clark avoids repeating previous errors of interpretation or transmission. Working systematically through diverse material, he continually returns to these sources, referring to the chronicles wherever theories or interpretations stray from this textual core. He provides a comparative analysis of the two chroniclers’ accounts, setting Ralph’s and William’s versions into tabulated form, the better to note similarities and highlight differences. He separates the framing narrative of the children’s appearance from the related testimony of the children’s story, handling each element in separate chapters. This allows both Clark and the reader to identify not only a common thread, but also where speculation and narrative devices creep into both accounts.In chapter 6, “The Framing Narrative,” Clark interrogates the various elements of this story in turn. This causes him to consider the fine distinctions between shades of green in translation and to give a brief overview of relevant medieval agricultural and cloth-dyeing practices. The children’s (or at least the surviving girl’s) green color fades when they move beyond eating raw beans to a more varied diet (including cooked food), giving rise to modern medical interpretations of their greenness. Clark undauntingly tackles these arguments too, investigating the effects of arsenic poisoning, allergic reaction, chlorosis, and anemia. Referring again to the chronicle accounts, he insists that none of these conditions account for the “leek-green” color (prassinus color) of the children’s skin, as described by Ralph (92–93, 118). He also dispenses with wishful thinking that sees any kinship between the green children and Gawain’s nemesis, the Green Knight, or any identification with the Green Man, which most scholars consider a twentieth-century construction by Lady Raglan. Indeed, nothing in the chroniclers’ accounts suggests that the children are viewed by their contemporaries as vegetal spirits: This is the realm of recent creative interpretations. There’s a drumroll moment when Clark states, “The similarities suggest that Ralph and William must have derived parts at least of their accounts from a single source” (70). I confess to a leap of excitement here at the prospect that Clark has discovered a hitherto unknown original source from which both chroniclers draw. Alas, no: If there is an urtext, Clark suggests, it is likely to be a lost draft of Ralph’s account which William had access to through the Cistercian grapevine (72–73). Ralph claims to have his story straight from the de Calne household, and William refers to several unnamed sources. Sensibly, Clark surmises that one of those sources was likely to be Ralph; William, he notes, tends to paraphrase sources without acknowledging them. Clark also provides context for the geography of the story, considering the topography—the important pits or ditches of Woolpit with which the children’s emergence is identified—and the proximity of other sites in the narrative, which he illustrates with maps. He also considers Woolpit as a liminal site (chapter 10). But most striking here is the vision of Woolpit as a village, not on the edge but in regular contact with wider cultures through the presence of domestic and foreign travelers. As Clark suggests, the children’s clothing and language must have been unusual indeed if neither the villagers, accustomed to strangers, nor the worldly Anglo-Norman Richard de Calne could recognize any aspects of their origin.Clark’s analysis in chapter 7, “The Children’s Story,” highlights differences suggestive of elaboration by adults, not only through leading questions and assertions from those who directly encountered the children but also by the chroniclers themselves. Folkloric motifs, seen in accounts of otherworlds by Gervase of Tilbury, Walter Map, and Gerald of Wales, appear to have worked their way into the imaginations and storytelling impulses of Ralph and William, too. Both chroniclers record what they believe to be true: William proclaims to be something of a skeptic, persuaded by the volume of accounts, and Ralph leans into the veracity of first-hand testimonials from his local contacts, the de Calnes. Clark concludes that, perhaps despite their best intentions, Ralph and William are guilty of framing the children’s story to fit existing tales of otherworlds, as evidenced by their selective, diverging accounts.Clark concludes by admitting that the Woolpit mystery remains unsolved: We will never know where the children came from and why they were green. He also tells us to remember the children at the heart of this story, whose traumatic experience and lost backstory have been picked over by generations of writers and scholars, including himself. It’s a heavy burden to place on such “slight shoulders” (191).As someone who has read several accounts and commentaries of the story, and offered my own (Preternature 14 [2025]: 34–57), this book reminds me that I have merely dipped a toe in the proverbial waters. Clark’s exhaustive research and detailed notes clarify some of my own uncertainties and tentative bridgings. His treatment of other writers on the subject is no high-handed hatchet job. Understandably lacking patience with those who fail to fact-check, or who treat material selectively to fit their pet theories, he clearly respects the writers whose scholarship he draws on, regardless of differences of opinion. He even acknowledges the tenacity of those whose theories veer into the fantastical and speculative. Clark applies methodical precision to his material: he analyzes every claim and counterclaim. But despite the density of his research, his prose retains a lightness and ease that makes the book a hugely enjoyable read, ensuring its accessibility to a wide readership. While the story of the green children receives a forensic handling, Clark’s enjoyment of it, in all its metamorphic complexity, shines through.Although Clark’s book is the last word in research and analysis to date, it is likely to provoke new interest in and retellings of the story, rather than stem the flow. Perhaps it will also serve to prompt a much-needed translation of Ralph’s work. There may even be a copy of Ralph’s urtext, unembellished and containing lost nuggets of the story, waiting to be unearthed from some obscure, Borgesian archive. The story continues.