The Green Children

Two children, green-skinned, speaking no known tongue, walked out of a pit in Suffolk. One survived to explain — strangely.

The green children of Woolpit appear in two near-contemporary chronicles (William of Newburgh, Ralph of Coggeshall, late 12th century): two green-skinned children speaking an unknown tongue, found by harvesters; the boy died, the girl adapted, lost the coloration, and reportedly described a sunless homeland ('St Martin's Land'). Historians propose Flemish immigrant orphans with chlorosis (dietary green sickness); folklorists file it with otherworld-visitor traditions. The node is the medieval anchor of the portal/underworld thread: a case old enough that its documentation and its legend are the same texts.