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| Nor does it seem proper to pass over a prodigy unheard of by generations
which is known to have happened in There is a village in East Anglia four or five miles distant, it is said, from the noble monastery of the blessed king and martyr Edmund. Near which village are seen certain very ancient pits, which are called in the English tongue 'wlfpittes', that is, the pits of the wolves, and bestow their name upon the village which they adjoin. Out of those pits at the time of the harvest, the reapers being busy about the gathering of the fruits throughout the fields, there emerged two children, male and female, green in the whole body and of strange hue, clad in raiment of unknown material. And when they were wandering stunned through the village, and with many tears at the sight of so much that was novel, for several days were tried with offered food. When they were almost dead with fasting, nor attended to any of the foods which were offered to them, by chance some beans happened to be brought from the field; which immediately seizing, they sought the lentil itself in the stalks, and finding nothing in the hollow of the stalks, wept bitterly. Then certain of those who were present offered them the legume plucked out of the shells; which immediately accepting they ate freely. They were nourished by this food for several months, until they knew the use of bread. Thereupon, little by little changing their own colour, through the prevailing nature of our foods, and rendered like us, they also learned the use of our language. And it seemed to the wise they should receive the sacrament of holy baptism, which indeed was done. But the boy, who seemed to be the younger, living a short time after the baptism was removed by premature death; his sister, however, remaining sage and sound, nor differing in much from the women of our kind. Indeed, she afterwards took a husband at Lynn, t is said, and few years ago was said to be still living. When they had the use of our tongue, being asked who and whence they were, they are stated to have replied: 'We are people of the land of Saint Martin, who undoubtedly is held in especial veneration in the land of our birth.' Subsequently asked where that land might be, and by what means they had come from thence, they said 'we know neither. This much we remember: that when one day we were grazing our father's cattle in a field, we heard a certain great sound, as we are now accustomed to hear at St. Edmunds, when they are said to sound the tocsin, and when we heard that sound which we wondered at in our souls, suddenly, as if fallen into some departure of the mind, we found ourselves among you in the field where you were reaping.' Asked whether in that place there was a belief in Christ, or whether the sun rose, they said that land to be Christian and to have churches. 'but the sun' they said,'does not rise in our native places. Its rays illumine our land very slightly, restricted to a measure of that brightness which among you wither precedes the sun in the East or follows it in the West. Moreover, a certain lighted land is seen not far from our land, the two being divided by a very broad stream.' These and many other things, long to unravel, they are reported curiously to have replied to those inquiring, and let what conclusions that can be drawn concerning these matters. I myself am not ashamed to have set forth the prodigious and marvellous event. William of Newburgh (c.1136-c.1198) ********************************************************************* A ...wondrous thing... happened in Suffolk at St. Mary Woolpit. A certain boy was discovered with his sister by the inhabitants of that place, lying by the edge of a pit which exists there, who had the same form in all members as the rest of mankind, but in the colour of their skins differed from all mortals of our habitable world. For the whole surface of their skins was tinged with a green colour. Nobody could understand their speech. Being accordingly brought out of wonder to the house of Master Richard Calne, a soldier, at Wicks, they wept inconsolably. Bread and other food was brought to them, but they would eat no victuals which were placed before them., even while tormented for a long time by the greatest pangs of hunger because all food of that kind they believed to be inedible., as the girl afterward avowed. At length, when some beans newly broken off with their stalks were brought into the house, they made signs with the greatest avidity that those beans should be given to them. Which being brought to them, they opened the stalks in place of the bean-pods, thinking the beans t be contained in the hollows of the stalks. This some of those standing by noticed, and opened the pods and showed the naked beans, which being shown they ate with great joy, for a long time touching no other food at all. The boy however, always as it were oppressed by languor, after a short time died. But the girl, enjoying continual good health, and become used to any kind of food, entirely lost that leek-green colour, and gradually recovered a sanguine habit of the whole body. She afterwards being regenerated by the holy bath of baptism, and remaining for many years in the service of the aforesaid soldier (as from the soldier and his household we frequently heard,) showed herself very lascivious and wanton. Questioned frequently concerning the men of the region, she averred that all dwellers and things in the region were tinged with a green colour, and that they perceived no sun, but enjoyed a certain brightness such as happens after sunset. Questioned further by what means she had come into this land with the aforesaid boy, she replied that because they were following some cattle, they came into a cave. Having entered which, they heard a certain delectable sound of bells, caught up by the sweetness of which sound, they walked for a long time wandering through the cavern, until they came to the exit of it. Whence emerging, as if stunned by the too great brightness of the sun and unaccustomed temperature of the air, they ay long at the edge of the grotto. And when they were terrified by the agitation of those who came upon them, they wished to flee, but could in no wise discover the entrance of the cave, before they were seized by those arrivals. Ralph of Coggeshall (d.1227) |
England under King Stephen. And
indeed I have hesitated long over this matter, which was related
by many; and the thing seemed to me either of no or of concealed
reason, ridiculous to response faith in; until so overwhelmed by
the weight of so many and such witnesses as to be compelled to believe
and marvel at what I cannot approach or explain by any forces f the
intellect. 