Hidden History: Lost Civilizations, Secret Knowledge, and Ancient Mysteries, Brian Haughton [books you need to read .TXT] 📗

Although no Tocharian texts have ever been found together with mummies in the Tarim basin, the almost identical geographical location of both, as well as depictions of Tocharians showing European features, strongly suggests that at least some of the mummy people of the area were the ancestors of the Tocharians. But did these people trek all the way across Europe and half of Asia to find their homeland in the and deserts of western China? Judging by the textile evidence for the origin of tartan in the Caucasus mountains of south Russia, and the linguistic evidence placing the beginnings of the Indo-European language in the same area, it seems that perhaps there was migration from the Caucasus at a very early date. Dr. Elizabeth Barber hypothesizes that there may have been two migrations from the possible Indo-European homeland northwest of the Black Sea-one to the west, resulting in Celtic and other European civilizations; and the other migration, the ancestors of the Tocharians, moving east, and eventually finding their way into the Tarim basin of central Asia. In light of the finds of the Tarim mummies, the theory that east and west developed their civilizations in complete isolation from each other may have to be abandoned.

The Strange Tale of the Green Children

© Scott Brown

Thetford Forest, Norfolk, where the Green Children are said to have roamed.

During the troubled reign of king Stephen of England (1135-1154), there was a strange occurrence in the village of Woolpit, near Bury St. Edmunds, in Suffolk. At harvest time, while the reapers were working in the fields, two young children emerged from deep

ditches excavated to trap wolves, known as wolf pits (hence the name of the village). The children, a boy and a girl, had skin tinged with a green hue, and wore clothes of a strange color, made from unfamiliar materials. They wandered around bewildered for a few minutes, before being taken by the reapers to the village, where the locals gathered round to stare at them. No one could understand the language the children spoke, so they were taken to the house of local landowner Sir Richard de Calne, at Wikes. Here they broke into tears and for some days refused to eat the bread and other food that was brought to them. But when recently harvested beans, with their stalks still attached, were brought in, the starving children made signs that they desperately wanted to eat them. However, when the children took the beans they opened the stalks rather than the pods, and finding nothing inside, began weeping again. After they had been shown how to obtain the beans, the children survived on this food for many months until they acquired a taste for bread.

As time passed, the boy, who appeared to be the younger of the two, became depressed; he sickened and died. But the girl adjusted to her new life, and was baptized. Her skin gradually lost its original green color and she became a healthy young woman. She learned the English language and afterward married a man at King's Lynn, in the neighboring county of Norfolk, apparently becoming "rather loose and wanton in her conduct." Some sources claim that she took the name Agnes Barre, and the man she married was a senior ambassador of Henry II. It is also said that the current Earl Ferrers is descended from her through intermarriage. What evidence this is based on is unclear, as the only traceable senior ambassador with this name at the time is Richard Barre, chancellor to Henry II, archdeacon of

Ely and a royal justice in the late 12th century. After 1202, Richard retired to become an Austin canon at Leicester, so it is seems unlikely that he was the husband of Agnes.

When questioned about her past, the girl was only able to relate vague details about where the children had come from and how they arrived at Woolpit. She stated that she and the boy were brother and sister, and had come from "the land of Saint Martin" where it was perpetual twilight, and all the inhabitants were green in color, as they had been. She was not sure exactly where her homeland was located, but another "luminous" land could be seen across a "considerable river" separating it from theirs. She remembered that one day they were looking after their father's herds in the fields and had followed them into a cavern, where they heard the loud sound of bells. Entranced, they wandered through the darkness for a long time until they arrived at the mouth of the cave (presumably the wolfpits), where they were immediately blinded by the glaring sunlight. They lay down in a daze for a long time, before the noise of the reapers terrified them and they rose and tried to escape, but were unable to locate the entrance of the cavern before being caught.

Is there any truth behind this extraordinary story, or should it be listed among the many fantastical marvels listed by chroniclers of medieval England? The two original sources are both from the 12th century. The first is William of Newburgh (1136-1198), an English historian and monk, from Yorkshire. His main work, Historia rerum Anglicarum (History of English Affairs), is a history of England from 1066 to 1198, in which he includes the story of the Green Children. The other source is Ralph of Coggeshall (died c. 1228), who was the sixth abbot of Coggeshall Abbey in Essex from 1207 to 1218. His account of the Green Children is included in the Chronicon Anglicanum (English Chronicle) to which he contributed between 1187 and 1224. As can be seen from the dates, both authors recorded the incident many years after it was supposed to have taken place. The fact that there is no mention of the Green Children in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, which deals with English history up until the death of King Stephen in 1154, and includes many of the wonders popular at the time, could