The Green Children of Woolpit: “the true old fairy mythology”?

• 05/04/2022
• 18:00-19:30
• Online talk

John Clark

John Clark (Emeritus Curator, The Museum of London), ‘The Green Children of Woolpit: “the true old fairy mythology”?’

Tuesday 5 April 2022, 18:00, online

The story of the two ‘Green Children’ who appeared in the Suffolk village of Woolpit in the middle of the 12th century, reported by two medieval historians, has been popular ever since an English translation of Ralph of Coggeshall’s original Latin account was published by Thomas Keightley in his The Fairy Mythology in 1850.

Since Keightley’s time it has often been regarded as a ‘Suffolk folktale’, ripe for ‘retelling’, and mined for information on medieval beliefs about the nature and appearance of ‘fairy-folk’ and the location and circumstances of an ‘otherworld’.

This talk by John Clark considers the original accounts in their geographical and historical context and questions how far we are justified in considering that they reflect medieval understanding of ‘fairies’ or ‘fairy’ otherworlds.

Tickets £5.00 (£3.00 Folklore Society members with Promo Code: log in to the Members area to get the Promo Code and don’t forget to click ‘Apply’): to book, visit https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-green-children-of-woolpit-the-true-old-fairy-mythology-tickets-255231423057

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