The Green Children of Woolpit: Superstitions Past and Present by Catherine Hokin

There's been a bit of a trend on social media recently for parents posting back-to-school pictures of their offspring. I'm not sure a snap of my 21 year old lugging beer back to Manchester would be quite so edifying but his return to university did get me thinking about my study days (at the same place - many veils have been drawn). His last week at home was marked by much amusement over my
old (typewritten) history notes and thesis and a walk around our local area that showed how close our past really is to our present.

 Medieval Votive Objects Exeter Cathedral

My over-confident undergraduate ramblings were centred on politics, witchcraft and superstition in medieval England. The main thrust was the treatment of women but there was also a chapter on votive objects.These examples of medieval piety can be found at all the great 'tourist' pilgrimage stopping points across England and Europe and have their roots in practices stretching as far back as the human need to look at the world around them and search for answers to unsolvable problems. Votives can be separated into two kinds: 'thank you' objects for a prayer answered, often hearts stamped with the letters VFGA (Votum Fecit, Gratiam Accepit, a vow was made and grace was obtained); requests for help, particularly to cure sickness and in the form of wax figures or body parts.

This practice has not died out and votives can still be seen in Catholic countries and, perhaps more surprisingly, in Scottish woods.  

 The Fairy House

 Doonhill Fairy Trail

The Doonhill Fairy Trail, just outside the town of Aberfoyle, seems at first sight to be a whimsical thing. The first marker you meet as you follow the signs to the trail is a cutely carved house and a whole collection of little fairy figurines and pixies dotted about the tree roots. So far so tongue-in-cheek and we were quite giggly by the time we reached the fairy clearing at the top. What greeted us there was very unexpected and enough to quieten our mixed and, let's be honest, cynical group. The whole glade was covered in rag trees, something I had read about in my early research but never seen. These votive sites have an ancient history in Scotland and Ireland and many similarities with the medieval Christian practice of asking for aid in times of trouble: strips of cloth, sometimes from the sick person's clothing or from cloth used to wash the affected part, are tied to the tree and, as the rag disintegrates, the affliction is meant to fade away. We spent quite a while in the glade, it is hard not to, reading the messages accompanying the ribbons and what was particularly fascinating was the range of beliefs addressed, sometimes fairies and more traditional religions implored in the same small letter. Writers of historical fiction, myself included, often say that people don't change, times do - standing in that clearing, feeling years of human helplessness in the face of an uncontrollable world stretching from the present to a very distant past, there was no arguing with the truth of that.

 Battle of Mortimer's Cross

Some superstitions stay just that, some get unpicked by history and explained. The three suns which apparently appeared in the sky at dawn on the morning of the Battle of Mortimer's Cross in 1461 can be explained nowadays as the meteorological phenomenon known as a parhelion: a pair of bright spots appearing horizontally on each side of the sun, often with a halo-like glow. To the soldiers waiting to fight it was simply frightening; to the Yorkist leaders it was a wonderful propaganda opportunity, a living symbol of the Holy Trinity and proof that God was on their side. I am currently researching the twelfth century, a time when 'pagan' beliefs and stories were still closely inter-woven with the Christian teachings that had overlaid them. A prevailing belief was in an underworld inhabited by 'faerie folk' - an 'otherworld' reached through caves or underwater which existed side-by-side with our world and could intrude into ours, eg. at midsummer. The folk who lived here were often thought to be green-coloured and the colour green frequently appears in myths such as the Green Man and the Arthur stories.

 The Sussex Wolfpits

In the middle of the twelfth century, during the chaotic civil war period known as The Anarchy, it seems the faerie world wandered into ours. Two near contemporary chronicles (the Historia rerum Anglicarum and the Chronicum Anglicanum) report the story of two children found wandering in Thetford Forest near the village of Woolpit, by the wolfpits which give the village its name. The boy and girl had green skin, spoke a language no one could understand and wore odd clothing. The children were taken to the house of Richard de Calne where all attempts to feed them failed until the children found some bean pods which they ate, continuing to eat only these for many months until they could be induced to eat bread and other foods. This added to the mystery surrounding them as beans had associations with food eaten by the dead. When the children eventually learned English, they talked of living in a dark land where the sun never shone and everything was green. The boy died within a year of being found but the girl survived and has been, possibly, identified as Agnes Barre who worked as a servant for de Calne and eventually married a royal official, Richard Barre. The Chronicum Anglicanum describes her as "very wanton and impudent" but this may simply be to underscore her strange heritage as faeries were commonly associated with lascivious behaviour.

Woolpit

In 1998, historian Paul Harris put forward the theory that the children were Flemish, hence the strange language, had fled into the forest after their parents had been slaughtered and lived there, either in the dark undergrowth or in the miles of ancient mine workings in the area, until they were found. Some of his reasoning about the children's Flemish origin has been questioned but what I found interesting was his explanation for the children's colour. When they were found, they were very malnourished and only recognised bean pods, which they would have encountered variations of in the forest, as food. His theory is that the children were suffering from what was known at the time as 'green-sickness' or what we know today as hypochromic anemia which is caused by a diet very deficient in iron and protein and causes the skin to have a markedly green tinge. Given that the chronicles state that both children, once they began to tolerate a wider range of food, lost the green colour and turned pink, this seems like a logical explanation. Not green children then, just very sick ones.

The superstitions of the past are fascinating things as is the science that unpicks them. The lesson of the Doonhill Fairy Trail, however, suggests that even our increased understanding of the world can't totally unpick us: scratch the surface and we're all still mentally throwing salt, crossing our fingers and wishing.

Matisse's Chapel: La Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence by Adèle Geras

This is the long, long hill leading  from the centre of Vence,  in the South of France up to the Chapelle du Rosaire which Matisse worked on very near the end of his life, between 1949 and 1951. It was built for Dominican nuns and is considered one of the world's great religious buildings.  There are easier ways to reach the Chapel, and indeed on our way back, the walk had almost no slopes at all. But from where we were in the town we could see it, up on the hill opposite which didn't look a long way at all. 

Those who know me know that I am no athlete. I am also not young. Still, I walked up that hill and felt at the end as if I'd achieved something to be proud of. I was then forbidden by my daughter from ever attempting such a climb again....I must have been very red in the face and she must have feared I'd keel right over. But I didn't....I was simply a bit out of breath for a minute or two.

 I did a quiz once where the question was: Matisse or Picasso? I've never had any hesitation in choosing Matisse and if there were only one artist allowed to me, I'd choose him, for many reasons. I love his colours. I love his subjects. I love his versatility. I love the way that when he couldn't do one kind of art, he did another. I love his longevity. Above all, I love the fact that looking at Matisse ALWAYS makes you feel happy.  And towards the end of his life, he made the Chapelle du Rosaire which is an extraordinary place. 

No one is allowed to take photos within the Chapel. I bought postcards which I've photographed to give some idea, but really, they are woefully inadequate. I have no religious faith whatsoever but readers of this blog will know that even though I'm Jewish, I am very fond indeed of cathedrals, chapels and the like. I've often wondered about this, and come to the conclusion that it's because those who do believe made these places for everyone to be calm in; to think in; to express their deepest wishes in; to mourn in; to rejoice in and for that reason they devoted to them the very best that their handiwork could devise.  And buildings on which time and care and talent have been lavished retain the resulting beauty forever. 

The work on the Chapel wasn't easy. From the guidebook I bought, I learned that someone called Father Couturier writes :"the hundreds of preparatory drawings, the endless new restarts, the anguish of sleepless nights."

There is no hint of the sleepless nights, nor of the anguish when you walk into the Chapel. It's the very embodiment of serenity. The enormous blue and yellow stained glass windows spill light on to the white floor.  The guide book says: "Each of the windows is in the form of a curtain drawn across a yellow background. On the two southern windows, the layout of the yellow and blue leaves on a green background gives a surface proportionate to the rays of light." 

Just sitting in the Chapel for a short time is restorative and truly lifts the spirits. The simplicity is striking. Everything is the opposite of ornate. There is nothing dark anywhere to be seen. The silence is healing, until another band of tourists appears and about a dozen people take their places in the pews, but even then, even with the modern phenomenon of more and more people getting to more and more places, peace and harmony  conquer all. The beauty is so present everywhere that it makes no difference whether there are crowds of tourists there or not. Tranquillity like this is undisturbable.

The black and white murals on the walls are painted on tiles measuring a foot across. You can see their vague outlines in the postcard. Matisse was too ill by that time to do the actual painting on the high walls himself, but he had a team of skilled workers who transferred his painted drawings on paper to the tiles on the wall.

The nuns were a little disconcerted at first about the depiction of Our Lady's naked breast, but in the end, they came to love  this mural too.  Those clouds, or flowers around the figures look like the sort of thing a child might easily draw and they give the mural a  quality of innocence and joy that a more detailed (or grown-up) image would never capture. 

I wish I could have photographed the door to the confessional....it's made of pinkish stone in a kind of fretwork or lace and is supremely beautiful, but there was no postcard in the shop. On the way to the shop, along a small corridor, you pass this basin attached to the wall. Matisse has decorated the wall behind it and it's a lovely thing to behold. There is a card of that, and that's why I've been able to reproduce it here. 

If you are in the area over the summer, or ever, I can only urge you to visit this place. You won't forget it.

When we came out of the Chapel, determined to find a flatter and easier way back into Vence, we turned left and saw immediately next to the Chapel, this building which is where the Dominican nuns live. It struck me what fun they must have had choosing those turquoise pots, and picking the pinkest of geraniums to go with them.  If you spend your life here, you will love and long for colour and here's a perfect way of achieving it. Those pots made me smile.  

We made it back to Vence quite easily and without any puffing and blowing on my part. Here's my favourite photo of the trip: more kinds of tomato than you can shake a stick at. I enjoy thinking of Monsieur Matisse's housekeeper bringing him a salad of some of these while he worked on the Chapelle du Rosaire. Dressed with  Provençal olive oil, a little garlic and the juice of these lemons...