Interracial / Intercultural relationships

**Emil El Zapato** · 30th June 2021, 00:32

Originally posted by Chris

Is he the one with the beard?

Off topic perhaps, but I remember reading a book by the original 'strange case' guy that included a story of two 'green' kids that dropped out of nowhere and lived the rest of their lives with their adopted family ... the presumption was that they were "Aliens". Perhaps the source of the 'Little Green Men' meme.

**Dreamtimer** · 30th June 2021, 00:41

Wow, Wind. I didn't know you'd seen an image of our former Shire-mate at a Trump rally. Not surprised to hear he was there though.

**Aragorn** · 30th June 2021, 02:59

Originally posted by BeastOfBologna

Off topic perhaps, but I remember reading a book by the original 'strange case' guy that included a story of two 'green' kids that dropped out of nowhere and lived the rest of their lives with their adopted family ... the presumption was that they were "Aliens". Perhaps the source of the 'Little Green Men' meme.

It was in Woolpit in England, somewhere in the 12th century.


	Story One day at harvest time, according to William of Newburgh during the reign of King Stephen (r. 1135–1154), the villagers of Woolpit discovered two children, a brother and sister, beside one of the wolf pits that gave the village its name. Their skin was green, they spoke an unknown language, and their clothing was unfamiliar. Ralph reports that the children were taken to the home of Richard de Calne. Ralph and William agree that the pair refused all food for several days until they came across some raw broad beans, which they consumed eagerly. The children gradually adapted to normal food and in time lost their green colour. The boy, who appeared to be the younger of the two, became sickly and died shortly after he and his sister were baptised. After learning to speak English, the children – Ralph says just the surviving girl – explained that they came from a land where the sun never shone and the light was like twilight. William says the children called their home St Martin's Land; Ralph adds that everything there was green. According to William, the children were unable to account for their arrival in Woolpit; they had been herding their father's cattle when they heard a loud noise (according to William, the bells of Bury St Edmunds) and suddenly found themselves by the wolf pit where they were found. Ralph says that they had become lost when they followed the cattle into a cave and, after being guided by the sound of bells, eventually emerged into our land. According to Ralph, the girl was employed for many years as a servant in Richard de Calne's household, where she was considered to be "very wanton and impudent". William says that she eventually married a man from King's Lynn, about 40 miles (64 km) from Woolpit, where she was still living shortly before he wrote. Based on his research into Richard de Calne's family history, the astronomer and writer Duncan Lunan has concluded that the girl was given the name "Agnes" and that she married a royal official named Richard Barre. Explanations Neither Ralph of Coggeshall nor William of Newburgh offer an explanation for the "strange and prodigious" event, as William calls it, and some modern historians have the same reticence: "I consider the process of worrying over the suggestive details of these wonderfully pointless miracles in an effort to find natural or psychological explanations of what 'really,' if anything, happened, to be useless to the study of William of Newburgh or, for that matter, of the Middle Ages", says Nancy Partner, author of a study of 12th-century historiography. Nonetheless, such explanations continue to be sought and two approaches have dominated explanations of the mystery of the green children. The first is that the narrative descends from folklore, describing an imaginary encounter with the inhabitants of a "fairy Otherworld". In a few early as well as modern readings, this other world is extraterrestrial, and the green children alien beings. The second is that it is a garbled account of a real event, although it is impossible to be certain whether the story as recorded is an authentic report given by the children or an "adult invention". His study of accounts of children and servants fleeing from their masters led Charles Oman to conclude that "there is clearly some mystery behind it all [the story of the green children], some story of drugging and kidnapping". Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, a literary critic, offers a different kind of historical explanation, arguing that the story is an oblique account of the racial difference between the contemporary English and the indigenous Britons. ─ continue reading here ─

Originally posted by Dreamtimer

Wow, Wind. I didn't know you'd seen an image of our former Shire-mate at a Trump rally. Not surprised to hear he was there though.

He himself did mention in the mod room that he had been attending Trump rallies in the run-up to the 2016 elections, so it was already known about even back then.

**Chris** · 30th June 2021, 07:11

Originally posted by Aragorn

It was in Woolpit in England, somewhere in the 12th century.


	Story One day at harvest time, according to William of Newburgh during the reign of King Stephen (r. 1135–1154), the villagers of Woolpit discovered two children, a brother and sister, beside one of the wolf pits that gave the village its name. Their skin was green, they spoke an unknown language, and their clothing was unfamiliar. Ralph reports that the children were taken to the home of Richard de Calne. Ralph and William agree that the pair refused all food for several days until they came across some raw broad beans, which they consumed eagerly. The children gradually adapted to normal food and in time lost their green colour. The boy, who appeared to be the younger of the two, became sickly and died shortly after he and his sister were baptised. After learning to speak English, the children – Ralph says just the surviving girl – explained that they came from a land where the sun never shone and the light was like twilight. William says the children called their home St Martin's Land; Ralph adds that everything there was green. According to William, the children were unable to account for their arrival in Woolpit; they had been herding their father's cattle when they heard a loud noise (according to William, the bells of Bury St Edmunds) and suddenly found themselves by the wolf pit where they were found. Ralph says that they had become lost when they followed the cattle into a cave and, after being guided by the sound of bells, eventually emerged into our land. According to Ralph, the girl was employed for many years as a servant in Richard de Calne's household, where she was considered to be "very wanton and impudent". William says that she eventually married a man from King's Lynn, about 40 miles (64 km) from Woolpit, where she was still living shortly before he wrote. Based on his research into Richard de Calne's family history, the astronomer and writer Duncan Lunan has concluded that the girl was given the name "Agnes" and that she married a royal official named Richard Barre. Explanations Neither Ralph of Coggeshall nor William of Newburgh offer an explanation for the "strange and prodigious" event, as William calls it, and some modern historians have the same reticence: "I consider the process of worrying over the suggestive details of these wonderfully pointless miracles in an effort to find natural or psychological explanations of what 'really,' if anything, happened, to be useless to the study of William of Newburgh or, for that matter, of the Middle Ages", says Nancy Partner, author of a study of 12th-century historiography. Nonetheless, such explanations continue to be sought and two approaches have dominated explanations of the mystery of the green children. The first is that the narrative descends from folklore, describing an imaginary encounter with the inhabitants of a "fairy Otherworld". In a few early as well as modern readings, this other world is extraterrestrial, and the green children alien beings. The second is that it is a garbled account of a real event, although it is impossible to be certain whether the story as recorded is an authentic report given by the children or an "adult invention". His study of accounts of children and servants fleeing from their masters led Charles Oman to conclude that "there is clearly some mystery behind it all [the story of the green children], some story of drugging and kidnapping". Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, a literary critic, offers a different kind of historical explanation, arguing that the story is an oblique account of the racial difference between the contemporary English and the indigenous Britons. ─ continue reading here ─

He himself did mention in the mod room that he had been attending Trump rallies in the run-up to the 2016 elections, so it was already known about even back then.

Coming up next:

Picture of me at an Orbán rally, waving a Nazi salute and burning a rainbow flag...

**Dreamtimer** · 30th June 2021, 12:10

Lol, Chris. (I'd forgotten that bsbray had said that himself).

Chris, as long as you don't wave that flag while breaking windows, going into the Capitol, beating people, and spreading your excrement around, I'm really OK with it.

You do you, Chris.