About the Mi'qmak

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 The First Nations' tribes of the St. Lawrence River Valley once were many. Not all shared the same language group or lifeways. Different tribes of Iroquois as well as the many members of the Algonquin/Huron group shared the abundant resources of the powerful river. Among these, probably some the first to encounter the European invasion in the 1600's were the Mi'qmak who lived around the St. Lawrence Bay area as well as in New Foundland, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and the Gaspe' Peninsula.  Their language belonged to the Algonquin family of languages, and, historically, they were members of the Alongonquin Abenaki Confederation, a league formed in opposition to the Iroquois. Later, the Mi'kmaq would be drawn into colonial wars between the British and French colonizers as well. 

As they were among the first indigenous people who encountered Europeans, between 1500 and 1600 it has been estimated that half their population died from newly introduced diseases, such as measles, mumps, diptheria and, of course, that great killer, smallpox. The first explorer they met was probably John Cabot, an Italian exploring for the English, who described them as fierce and warlike. Even earlier, they had even encountered European fishermen--Basque, Portuguese, French, and English--who had discovered the piscean bonanza of the Grand Banks, rich with Cod and whales.    

Originally, the Mi'kmaq were seasonal nomads, who called themselves "Lnu" (the People), people of the Red Earth. In the spring and summer they could be found on the coasts as they followed spawning events. Even as early as March, smelt were running in the thawing rivers, and later came the herring. Then they found waterfowl eggs and waterfowl themselves, birds busy nesting. 

There were always shellfish along the coasts and other kinds of fish, which they caught in loosely woven baskets, and by the use of ad hoc stone weirs built in the rivers. Here, they speared the fish they'd trapped. They also caught salmon, sturgeon, and even lobster and squid, out in the ocean using large sea-worthy canoes (5.5 to 8.5 meters) with a bark exterior and a cedar wood frame. These canoes were able to sail to the shoals around the islands and, in historic times, there are reports of the entire families traveling island to island in them. Lastly, in autumn, eels ran, providing a finale to their fishing season. They dried what they caught, pounded the flesh to flake and packed that in caches for winter.

Fine craftsmen before first contact, originally they made tools of stone and bone--hooks and arrow points and spear-heads--as well as many different size needles and awls for piercing hide and bark. They women were experts at basket making, these constructed of bark and decorated with porcupine quills, dyed in red and yellow (ochre), charcoal and ground shells. Those four colors, red, yellow, black and white, were also used in face paint and body decoration. They used wood to create spoons and kettles, these last heated by the addition of hot stones as well as finely made grass baskets.

In the autumn and winter, they would retreat inland, away from the gales of the coast, to hunt moose, elk, deer and caribou. Later, their efforts would focus on beaver, as the European fur trade had a lust for beaver pelts for men's hats. In colonial times, with both white men and red, hunting beaver, those clever creatures were nearly pushed to extinction. The Mi'qmak also hunted foxes, lynx, marten, and anything else which sported a beautiful winter fur coat. 

The Mi'qmak word for their homes, "wikuom" became our generic "wig-wam." These were oval, built of bent branches covered with bark and hides, easy to set up as they went from place to place. They loved to tell stories and these--elaborate creation stories of Creator "Mntu" who made everything, including the first Glooscap, his grandmother, as well as legends, hunters' and warriors' tales, stories that were particular to the band. The "Puoin" was a healer or shamen, also an interpreter of dreams. Interpreting dreams was often nightly pastime, because, long before Freud, they believed in the importance of their dreams. They often made important decisions based on what they believed were messages in their dreams, advice from their personal or tribal totemic figures or other interested spirits who watched over the lives of individuals.

The Mi'qmak were accustomed to living out-of-doors and did so, despite the weather, in even a time now called "the little ice age,"  unlike the Iroquois and Algonquin, who lived in palisaded villages in long houses. They considered settled living to be weakening. 

They also scorned growing crops as their neighbors did. Digging in the ground was not what real men did! Their social organization has been described as loose extended kinship groups, each group advised by a sagamore, a man who gained his position through his experience and reputation as a successful hunter, not by any exercise of power. The district chiefs were called Orsaqmaw and these men formed a great council by which the different groups of Mi'qmak negotiated among themselves about hunting territory, personal disputes and war-making. Decisions were made by consensus, which took time, reasoned debate and considerable debate.   

* Information gathered at various Canadian Heritage sites, particularly the Heritage sites of NewFoundland and Labrador.

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Tomorrow is Indigenous Childrens' Remembrance Day in the US and in Canada, a day in which we remember the removal and indoctrination of First Nations' Children in official "boarding schools." These "schools" existed (supposedly) to "Kill the Indian and save the man," but the reality, we know was far diffierent, perhaps akin to the way the Chinese now abduct Tibetan and Uyghur children, hoping to turn them into small copies of the Han who are the ruling group in China. Sadly, we in the West provided the model, which the Chinese, with their attention to detail and modern psychological techniques have now "perfected."

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Juliet Waldron~~ all my books are listed here @ 

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About Another Hamilton

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 Hamilton came to me via the free local advertiser. Scanning it idly one day I saw an ad which said, “Please Help! I have 31 cats, and need to find good homes.” I called the number, got directions and drove south through various moribund towns and up a dirt road to a run-down farmhouse. As soon as I stopped, I saw them: cats everywhere, cohabiting with a flock of bedraggled chickens in a grassy yard.

 The Cat Lady—I’ll call her “Nancy”--came out and we talked. She’d been working at the Humane Society, but she'd quit because she couldn’t bear the euthanasia of hundreds of animals that was, in those days, part of the weekly routine. She was as thin and tired-looking as her animals. I could see runny noses indicative of the highly contagious Calci virus in almost every cat. My heart sank.

 Even more sadly, most of the cats were wild. They depended upon her for food and sheltered in the tumbledown barn, but they were untouchable.  As she could afford it on a waitressing job, she'd neuter them and get them shots. She’d found a charitable vet who cut prices for her, but her burden appeared insurmountable.

 She and I sat down on the ground and waited. Eventually three scrawny half-grown orange boys drew close. You could actually count their ribs.

 “I call them the Orange Brothers,” Nancy said. “They were almost starved to death when I rescued them.” A veritable herd came in their wake as she opened the 10 lb. bag of kitty food I’d brought as an offering and dumped some on the ground.

 The cats backed off as soon as I tried to touch, so I sat and waited.  One of the Orange Brothers took a few bites of kibble, then came to me. As soon as I began to pet him, gently and carefully, he gave a roaring purr and threw himself into my lap. All was well for about two minutes, and then he bit my arm hard, twisting the skin almost to the breaking point. I didn’t resist. He let go and jumped away, clearly expecting a slap or a shout of protest.

 “He didn’t mean it,” Nancy said. “He wants to be loved, but he gets too excited.”

 I nodded and continued watching.

 A moment later, the bony little tom climbed into my lap again, purring his roaring purr. His fur was dry as straw as a result of malnutrition; his eyes were golden. Long story short, I brought him home, to a house that already had several cats. It took time to get him over the habit of reacting to petting with a bite, but with a lot of affection and enough food, he toned these love bites down to a recognizable level.

 As he was lean and bright orange and I was working on a Revolutionary War novel, I named him Hamilton. That heroic founding father had red hair and a poverty-stricken childhood.

 

Rivington’s (Tory) Gazette printed this snide comment in 1775, when Hamilton was a favorite aide de camp to General Washington:

“Mrs. Washington has a mottled orange tomcat of whom she is so particularly fond, she has named him ‘Hamilton.’ By the flaunting of his tail with the 13 rings around it the Rebels have taken the idea for their flag.”

 The name proved to fit this cat to a "T". Kitty Hamilton was a sensitive soul, and did that tomcat peeing thing whenever he felt anxious or threatened. He was also allergic to that kitty drug of choice, catnip. Until he fattened up, a process which took more than a year, he could not hold his 'nip. If he managed to find some, I soon knew, because he lost control of his limbs, fell down and peed all over himself like an old drunk. I’d have to cradle him and soothe him until he came down, because he cried in fear the whole time. 

 I never did manage to get him to stop marking. Any cat or person passing the house--even an argument with my husband--was liable to set him off. I hadn’t wanted to let him outside, but he made that motherly attempt to protect him impossible. He’d been a free kitty boy for far too long. Like his glorious namesake, he came with a severe case of PTSD which never went away—as well as a determination to be seen as a tomcat’s tomcat, even after neutering.

 

My Hamilton did not die in a duel, like our First Secretary of the Treasury, but he did fight with all challengers at every opportunity, even if he was completely out-matched. He was sometimes beaten up, but he usually attacked outsiders with such berserker rage that they avoided our house like the plague.

 He wanted to seem fearless, but his anxieties continually undermined him. He expressed this by peeing on the refrigerator door, in out-of-the-way corners, and on the backs of upholstered furniture, which I swiftly learned to keep covered with washable throws. Climactically, he slew my original CPU by peeing into the A Drive. A friend of mine said, “If that wasn’t such a nice orange cat--and if his name wasn’t Hamilton--he’d be dead.” My husband heartily agreed, but Hamilton's lover-boy self and willingness to lap sit, his smiling affability and charm aided his survival.

Hamilton always came when his name was called. He greeted my husband when he returned from work, with a raised head for a kiss, a motoring purr, waving that proud, banner-like tail. He slept in our bed, curled around my head in winter, a living, purring hat. He helped me write any number of books, lying beside--and, when he was fed up with "that damned typing" by standing in front of--my monitor.  He lived to be fourteen, and is buried with other cats of blessed memory in the feline necropolis beneath our Chinkopin tree.   

                           

                         

~~Juliet Waldron

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Research takes me to different eras and locales by Katherine Pym

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Capt Kidd in NY harbor. It was traditional to have loved ones aboard before sailing

Research takes me to different eras and locales. One of those places is on a wooden ship slicing through the ocean's heavy swells. I have several books that describe the building of them, their terminologies, but few mention what it was like living on board. Until now...

Oh, I knew ships were crowded. Cages of ducks, geese and chickens lined the main deck rails. Cows and goats were harnessed to masts. Below decks, the magazine and filling rooms sat close together but the powder room was farther astern. Safety, you know, even as ships sometimes spontaneously exploded.

Capt Kidd's NY Home

Seamen would often re-use old gun cartridges that, after a while, would deteriorate to a fine dust, and combined with particles of sulphuric and nitric acids found in gunpowder, a highly combustible substance called ‘guncotton’ would form. This friction of dust and gunpowder would cause terrific explosions, sinking the ship and everyone on board. 

Upward to several hundred men crowded onto a vessel. Captain Kidd, the privateer who turned pirate in the last years of the 17^th century, had one hundred fifty-two men and boys cheek to jowl aboard his ship Adventure Galley. Men had to sleep in shifts. 

The decks were so short, maybe 5 feet ceilings, everyone had to walk in a permanent crouch. Unless a seaman was given express permission from the captain, no fire could be taken below decks, and unless the decks had gunports, it was damn dark down there. 

Inaccurate rending of Kidd

“’No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail,’ observed Samuel Johnson. ‘For being in a ship is being in jail with the chance of being drowned... a man in jail has more room, better food and commonly better company.’

“Every available inch below deck was taken up with water-casks, barrels of salt beef, peas, beer; coils of ropes, bundles of extra canvas;” a private cabin or two, depending on the ship’s rate. These cabins were 4x4 feet. No one could stretch or pace. One had to sleep in the fetal position. 

“For landsmen, novices at this naval dormitory, the smell of that sleep chamber was gagging. Their overworked fellow sailors rarely changed their clothes or bathed; to top off the aroma of vintage sweat, toilet hygiene was rudimentary at best. 

“The ship’s head (i.e., toilet) consisted of a plank with a hole in it, which extended forward from the bow; a sailor perched on it, rode it like a seesaw, and, while doing his business, resembled some gargoyle or perverse bowsprit; the ship’s rail might provide the merest amount of privacy. A man attempting to tidy his ass risked a plunge into the sea.” 

Man being flogged

Even as existence such as this seemed pretty unpalatable, it got into the blood of men. Once they found their sea legs and learned the ways of the sea, many wouldn’t leave it for all their stolen treasure. If they didn’t like what their captain did, they could always mutiny, throw the offending captain overboard (as the Henry Hudson’s crew did) and sail away into the stormy sunset. 

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Many thanks to: 

Wikicommons, public domain 

The Pirate Hunter, The True Story of Captain Kidd by Richard Zacks. Hyperio, NY, NY. 2002

Tuesday 4 August, 2015: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-london-after-350-years-the-riddle-of-britains-exploding-fleet-is-finally-solved-10438854.html

 

The Mummy of Mammoth Cave by Katherine Pym

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Not long ago, I found a book in my bookshelves I didn't know I had. It's a guidebook of sorts of the great mammoth cave in Kentucky, a massive structure with more than 400 miles of surveyed passageways. There is little information out there about the mummy so my newly found book will have to suffice as the extant knowledge of the mummy's description. 

Apparently, there was no time frame of when the cave was discovered. It's been available to countless peoples over the vast period of history. 

The mummy is considered female, and found in the early 1800's by miners who were part of saltpeter operation during the 1812-1814 war with Great Britain. Because of the British blockade, weaponry and ammunition were hard commodities to find. 

No one knows her origin, but some say the body is similar to burial rites in pre-Columbian era. Her hair was a dark red and she was considered tall for the times, 5' 10". When discovered she was in a fetal position, much like the Inca mummies, with wrists bound over her chest and lower legs crossed. Since this finding, her body has disappeared, or so this book says, and to be realistic, there is little printed on the mummy of Mammoth Cave.

No one knows if she was murdered or sacrificed, for someone stabbed her in the ribs. 

They gave her the appellation of "Fawn-Hoof" because of the red fawn hooves found with her body. Along with the hooves, supposedly things to carry her into the otherworld were : an eagle's claw, deer skins, rattlesnake skins, caps of knitted bark, a bag of the same material, seven feather headdresses, one for each day of the week, bird quills not sharpened, and several necklaces, the seeds smaller than hemp seed, all strung together. In the stash were horn and bone needles, sinew used as thread. 

Her red hair had been shorn to the scalp, with an inch left at the nape of her neck. It was surmised at the time (early 1800's), those who cut off her hair considered it such an unusual color, they used it for sacred rites.

She was wrapped in deer skins, their unknown origin designs of vines and leaves which had been stretched in a stark white substance. She lay on knitted or woven bark in the appearance of South Sea mats. Her skin was dark but not African American. 

And so it goes. With the mummy lost who some say museums or stored in a private archive, what was originally described as "Fawn-Hoof" will remain the only technical observations, and that was approx 1813. A great mystery which will probably never be unearthed. 

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Many thanks to: Mammoth Cave and the Cave Region of Kentucky by Helen F. Randolph, The Standard Printing Company Inc., Louisville, 1924

Wikicommon, Public domain

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Earth Walker

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A powerful connection to the earth is a common theme among all 1^st Nations’ people about whom I’ve read, whether they live north or south of the arbitrary lines European colonists drew upon their home land. In every story I read written by 1^st Nations’ People, there is a recollection of a childhood where adults have carefully fostered a deep consciousness of what European culture commonly puts in a generalized lump called “Nature.” It’s that experience with which we European moderns, the “come heres” of the western hemisphere, are -- every day-- less and less familiar.

Football with my cousin, 1950's

Instead of gazing at screens all day, most folks my age (+70) remember playing outside regularly, especially during school summer holidays. My house was near a dairy farm and the surrounding fields were in hay and alfalfa. The farmer didn’t care if my mother and I roamed across them, or if I went by myself to a wonderful pond adjacent to a woodlot. In the spring it was full of tadpoles, crayfish, and blue gills. Later, in summer, it was full of multicolored frogs. Butterflies and dragon flies sailed above muddy flats, and floated over flowering plants, whose names I did not know, although I much admired their bright colors and floating seeds.  

Sometimes I’d see rabbits, fox, or woodchucks, or come across deer at their midday rest.  Red-winged blackbirds nested among the cattails; purple martens performed their fighter-pilot maneuvers over the pond.  At home, we even had a mud nest of barn swallows every year on the far end of our porch—off-limits to us until they’d finished rearing their adorable, plump, dun-breasted family.

For several years as a young teen I was sent to a summer camp--my parents' were fighting their way toward a divorce--for the entire three months. This particular camp was truly rustic, with unheated cabins, water you carried in buckets, and a bunch of retired police horses. These days it would probably be closed down as unsanitary and unsafe. You could take a bath--if you were willing to go to the owner's house--once a week. Otherwise, you "bathed" in the farm pond in the afternoon.

Some water came into it from chilly springs , but a creek flowed in at one end and over a dam at the other, so it was constantly in motion. The pond had been part of the original farm for years, so it was established. Water snakes cruised among the lily pads and cattail beds. While those reedy spots were green and inviting in the slanting afternoon light, we stayed as far away as possible, treading water and playing mermaids in the middle with friends.

It was, among us campers, a badge of honor to never go to the big house and take a bath. How humiliating! How sorry we were for the girls whose parents insisted upon it! The rest of us washed our bodies and our hair in the pond. We floated bottles, half filled with air and half with shampoo, as well as cakes of Ivory soap on the surface beside us. After a day of playing games, hiking in the woods, riding and grooming horses, and entertaining ourselves with marathon games of jacks--we dismantled the ping pong table to use the smooth wooden surface--everyone was ready to wash off the sweat before dinner.

When I returned home at the end of August, at my mother's insistence, I marched straight upstairs and ran the bathtub full. Standing naked before the mirror, I could see the brown dirt residue left from three months of "bathing" in a silty farm pond. The swim suit outline was shades darker than my suntan.

Many years ago, my granddaughter was taken for a walk in the woods for the first time when she was around two years old. Her entire experience of "outdoors" up until then had been playing in groomed suburban yards, or passing through parking lots and shopping malls with her Mama. After a first walk with her daddy on a nature trail, she haughtily pronounced the leaf and stick strewn paths “messy and uneven.”

It’s a funny story, but it’s also sad, as it shows how limited a modern child’s experience often is of this world in which she lives.  Fortunately for her, Dad got the message. From then on, he spent time with his girl out-of-doors, so she wouldn’t suffer from what I’ve come to look upon as Nature Deprivation. She can now out-walk her Grandma any day.

Snow picnic, 1970's, at a favorite spot

When she went to college, this eighteen year old was surprised to find "Walking" was a physical education course. As phys. ed. was required of freshmen and sophomores, she signed up, and then she was again surprised by the exhaustion and pain of which her classmates complained.

Considering all this, I guess it’s no wonder that so many people today are disrespectful of the earth, especially if shopping malls, macadam, and the virtual world are all they experience. It’s not only a great emotional and spiritual misfortune for them personally, but I believe this disconnection is the root cause of our civilization's current mega-scale disregard for our only home, our birth mother. 

Pipeline explosion

I’ve been reading To You We Shall Return by a Lakota author, Joseph Marshall III. This is part of an ongoing attitude adjustment exercise, as I hope to broaden my outlook and see the world through another cultural lens. (The one with which I was raised seems to have ever so many blind spots.) From that book is a Traditional Lakota Prayer to Mother Earth: 

 Grandmother,

You who listen and hear all,

You from whom all good things come,

It is your embrace we feel

When we return to you.

~~Juliet Waldron

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Genesee's story:

 Red men & White, at war in the world and in her blood.

The Executioner by Katherine Pym

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A story of 17th c London, medicine & the theatre

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Executioners are interesting although it is not easy to find a lot of data on these guys.  I know of two who were completely different. One was thoughtful, the other a menace to the public... 

The Guillotine during the Fr.Revolution, a humane way to die.

Charles-Henri Sanson was the executioner during the French Revolution. He executed Danton, Robespierre, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Before Camille Desmoulins was guillotined, he handed Sanson a locket of his wife’s hair. “Please return this to my wife’s mother.” 

Sanson did. While he was at the Duplessis’ household, Camille’s mother-in-law learned her daughter would be executed. Afraid Sanson would be recognized as the one who guillotined Camille, and would execute Lucile, Madame Duplessis’ daughter, he dashed away from their house, mournful of his vocation. 

Charles-Henri Sanson

Due to the caste system of the time, the offspring of executioners in France were never allowed any other vocation but that of an executioner, and he must marry an executioner’s daughter, thus keeping their grisly profession within a lower social stratum, and within the family. (Everyone must have been related. How many executioners could there have been in France in a given year?)  

They were not allowed to live in town but at its outskirts. One of Sanson’s descendants was a known herbalist. People came to him for cures. Another Sanson, who could not bear a life of executing people, committed suicide. 

Another well-known executioner was Jack Ketch. English executioners were taught several ways to execute an individual; i.e., with fire, the ax, and the rope. I’m not sure if Ketch was very proficient in his vocation or a complete fool. He botched most of his executions.  

Jack Ketch, an ugly dude inside & out

The hanging knot is supposed to be placed on the side of the neck so that when the poor wretch is thrust off the back of a cart, his neck should break, but Jack liked to put the knot at the back of the neck. This meant long strangulation. Family members were forced to run under the Tyburn hanging tree, grab the wretch’s legs and yank down, hoping somehow for a quick end.

When Jack used the ax, he knocked the blade against the person’s neck several times before the head came off.  One fellow he tortured was Lord Russell. It took four strokes of the ax before the man was finally dispatched. Because of his cruelty, a hue and cry reached the king. Jack Ketch was forced to write a note of apology to the Russell family, which was published in 1683. 

The Duke of Monmouth expressly requested Jack Ketch make good use of the ax: “Here,” said the duke, “are six guineas for you. Do not hack me as you did my Lord Russell. I have heard that you struck him three or four times. My servant will give you some gold if you do the work well.” 

The Tyburn Tree where Jack did his job so well

There is no evidence if Ketch took the money, but he disregarded the duke’s request. In a brutal attempt to torture the victim, it took several strokes to finally behead the lad.

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Many thanks to Wikicommons, Public Domain &

Old and New London: A Narrative Its History, Its People, and Its Places, The Western and Northern Suburbs, Vol. V.,  1892, by Edward Walford

It's a dog's life...by Sheila Claydon

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In my When Paths Meet series two of my characters are dogs. In book 1 it is Blue, an old Labrador and in books 2 and 3 it is Cora who grows from a boisterous puppy to a well trained dog. They are both integral to the stories although the books are not about animals, and now my love of dogs has come home to roost!

I never thought I would end up as a dog whisperer, but that's what I am. After a long career in health and a busy retirement where I have juggled writing 11 books with helping care for my grandchildren, it's now all about dogs!

None of this is intentional. We have always had dogs and now our furry family member is Elfie, a 4 year old poodle/cavalier cross. She is super bright and friendly and is the reason we keep walking and making like-minded friends, and that is how things have escalated.  Looking after our daughter's very deaf cavalier, Peppa, was a given when she was away, but then we made an agreement with a dog-walking friend that we would care for her wire-haired fox terrier, Ginny, whenever she needed us to. This meant that we frequently had 3 dogs at the same time. Then a fourth dog, a black Labrador  joined us. This was Archie. He was old and creaky but because one of his owners was very ill we had him on and off for weeks at a time. So now we were up to 4 dogs on a very regular basis. It's a good job we live right opposite open country that leads straight down to miles of sandy beach where dogs can run off lead because the thought of managing 4 dogs on leads is not my idea of fun,. Fortunately all our canine guests are very obedient if only because they are all very keen on biscuit rewards!

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For a while all was well but then, while we were still looking after him, Archie became very ill and after an operation and a spell in the veterinary hospital, he died. It was devastating to us and to his owner who, having only just lost her husband, was visiting her daughter in Australia, so all the decisions about his care had to be made by phone and text. Dogs are so brave. I spent 2 nights sleeping on the couch beside him when he could no longer walk and he still wagged his tail when I spoke to him, or licked my hand.

With any pet you have to be prepared to love them and lose them, however,  and now, although we miss Archie,  a new recruit has joined our ever growing canine collection. This is Paisley, another cavalier/poodle cross, 13 weeks old and being trained as a school dog to work with children with Autism. She belongs to our daughter who is a specialist in autism practice but as we will often be caring for her we are having the training too. It will take a year to cover everything but, as you can see from the picture, the training is working. At 13 weeks old Paisley already knows to sit for a treat and wait her turn. And although he died so soon after she joined the family, Archie did meet Paisley, so the circle is complete.

Also, as a complete coincidence, or was in foresight, in one of the books a dog is important to an autistic child. Life can be stranger than fiction but just occasionally fiction gets there first!

Mysterious Green Children by Katherine Pym

 

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Sign outside of Woolpit, Sussex

I once saw a BBC production where a village nurse found several children—brothers and sisters—alone in a house located at the edge of town. Their parents were nowhere to be seen. They were desperate and hungry, and all of them had orange skin. This stumped the nurse, until she realized they ate carrots for sustenance.

Recently, I ran across an account of a 12^th century mystery yet to be resolved. A young brother and sister appeared without explanation or reason in the hamlet of Woolpit in East Anglia, during the reign of King Stephen. They wore clothing of unknown origin and spoke a foreign language. The most peculiar difference: their skin was green.

No one knows where they truly came from. It is all very ‘unearthly’. 

Two chroniclers tell the tale: 

William of Newburgh, 12^th century, who enjoyed chronicling the kings of England. While writing of King Stephen, he threw in a paragraph or two of green children.

From his manuscript, ‘…four or five miles from the noble monastery of the blessed king and martyr, Edmund; near this place are seen some very ancient cavities, called “Wolfpittes,” that is, in English, “Pits for wolves,”’ (Hence Woolpit). …‘During harvest, while the reapers were employed in gathering in the produce of the fields, two children, a boy and a girl, completely green in their persons, and clad in garments of a strange color, and unknown materials, emerged from these excavations.’ (wolf pits)

The story goes on to say the harvesters took the children to the village, but they would not eat anything put before them, until at one point beans were brought in from the field. The children, who were starving, grabbed the stalks, but there were no beans. The villagers handed the children bean pods and they ate ravenously. They refused all other foods until months later, they tried bread. As the children became accustomed to other foods, their green color diminished. They learned English, and were baptized.

Asked where they had come from, they replied, ‘”We are inhabitants of the land of St. Martin, who is regarded with peculiar veneration in the country which gave us birth.” Being further asked where that land was, and how they came thence hither, they answered, “We are ignorant of both those circumstances; we only remember this, that on a certain day, when we were feeding our father’s flocks in the fields, we heard a great sound,”’ which they likened to the chimes of bells. They had become entranced and somehow found themselves in the Woolpit fields.

Lost Children

The children were asked if people of their land believed in Christ, and were there churches. They replied, ‘”The sun does not rise upon our countrymen; our land is little cheered by its beams; we are contented with that twilight, which among you, precedes the sunrise, or follows the sunset. Moreover, a certain luminous country is seen, not far distant from ours, and divided from it by a very considerable river.”’

The other chronicler, Ralph of Coggeshall, wrote of the green children in the 13^th century. His account seems to be separate from Newburgh’s, and came from the man who looked after the children. According to Coggeshall, the children were lost chasing their father’s cattle. They sought refuge in a cave, but hearing the sound of bells, followed the chimes to Woolpit.

The boy died not long after their baptism, but the girl grew to adulthood where one source says she married a man from King’s Lynn in Norfolk, and another that she married an ambassador of King Henry II. Some said the girl, whom they called Agnes, never acted like the ladies of the area. She was always different.

How the children came to Woolpit is a mystery. If they had come from the sea, how did they find the village, which is 18.6 miles from Ipswich, 37.2 miles from Aldeburgh, and 38.2 miles from Dunwich. That’s a good ways on foot, even today. These children were very young. How could they have traveled this far alone?

Imagine Little Green Girl

The girl mentioned a river, but there is no river in the direct vicinity of Woolpit. One source says there is/was a river not far from Bury St. Edmunds. There is a River Lark near Fornham St. Martin. Are there caves nearby? Where would the children have come from where there is no direct sunlight, and everyone’s skin is green?

Explanations:

One is that the children suffered from arsenic poisoning. Another, hypochromic anemia (chlorosis), which is an iron deficiency, and would have made their skin green. Yet another theory postulates they were the children of Flemish immigrants who were persecuted and killed—possibly in the battle at Fornham in 1173. But how did the children escape a battle? Why would they even be allowed near a battle?

Why was their skin green? Did they wander the fields, eating beans until found?

I do not know. It is a mystery, not so much that the children ate beans to survive, but that the land they had come from was always in a dull murk. Where would that place be?

~*~*~*~

Thanks to:

William of Newburgh, The History of English Affairs or Historia rerum Anglicarum, A history of England from 1066 to 1198, The Great Library Collection by R.P. Pryne, Philadelphia, PA, 2015 & a reprint from original publication of AD 1220.

Who were the Green Children of Woolpit? https://www.quora.com/Who-were-the-Green-Children-of-Woolpit-2/answer/Spencer-Alexander-McDaniel

https://www.ancient-origins.net/unexplained-phenomena/green-children-woolpit-12th-century-legend-visitors-another-world-002347

http://mentalfloss.com/article/62878/mystery-green-children-woolpit