WEBVTT
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Year Joe straight from the broadcast studio and then the
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static This ain't no beat sound story. So as prophetic
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encrypt the signals from the shadows of the party we
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did where the trop got secret, snow parted, microphone alchemists
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scriptures with a twist, keep the frequency seeds in the
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midst We dropped fast like plagues revelations in the catus,
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broadcasting truth while they trapped in surveillans wisdom with a
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watchman's blade, forth what sound while your whole system fade
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blood moons that for love, echoes in the pond sasquar
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sompen through the fault lines of time. We ain't mainstream,
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we ain't just stream safer with the prophets to code
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the dreams. So with you tune in better guards to
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mind as broadcasting seeds and were breaking the design.
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Yeah, yeh yo yo.
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Straight from the broadcast.
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You're listening to broadcasting Seeds where we dig into the strange,
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the forgotten, in the stories that don't always fit neatly
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into the history books. I'm your host, Bennettanton. Today we're
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traveling back to the medieval, to medieval England, to a
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quiet village with an oddly poetic name. Wolpit, a place
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that should have been unremarkable, just another dot on the map,
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if not for an encounter so bizarre it's still being
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told eight centuries later. It's the story of the Green
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Children of Wolpit, two kids who appeared out of nowhere,
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speaking no known language. Their skin was tinted unnatural and
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unnatural shade of green. Were they sick, starving? Or were
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they as some whisper from another world? Altogether? In this episode,
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we're going to peel back the layers of this mystery. First,
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we'll walk through the legend itself as it was recorded
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by the chroniclers of the time. Then we'll look at
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the theories that try to explain it away, and finally
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we'll ask the bigger questions, why does this story endure
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and what does they reveal about the way humans wrestle
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with the unknown? But before we get rolling, remember the
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way this show grows is through you. If you enjoy
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today's episode, take a moment like share and leave a review.
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It helps spread the word and keeps those strange stories,
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keeps all these strange stories alive. All right, let's step
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into the village of Woolpitt, where the fields were once
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haunted not by spirits but by the laughter or was
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it the crying of two mysterious green children? Picture twelfth
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century Suffolk, England. Life is hard but simple. The people
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of Wolpit farm the land, tend their tools, and try
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to avoid the wolves that gave them village its name.
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Then one day, while working the fields near the wolf pits,
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the villagers stumble into something so out of place that
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it shakes their understanding of the world. Two children, two children,
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two children, one boy, one girl, are found near the
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edge of the pits. They're dressed in clothes no one
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in Wolpit has ever seen before. The fabric is strange,
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the cut unusual, and their words are absolute gibberish to
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every year that hears them. But the strangest detail of
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all is their skin. It has a greenish hue, as
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if they've been dusted with copper, or born from some
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twilight place where sunlight never quite touches the ground. The
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villagers don't know what to make of them. They aren't
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orphans from the next town over. They're not travelers gone
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astray that the children themselves are no help. They're terrified.
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They're crying and unable to explain in any way the
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locals can understand. So Wolpit does what small communities often
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do when confronted with the inexplicable. They take the children in.
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They offer food, but the children refuse everything except raw
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beans pulled straight from the stalk. For days, that's all
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that they'd eat, surviving on a diet that only deepens
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the mystery. Unfortunately, the story turns dark. The boy, frail
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and unable to adapt, grows sick and dies. Now the girl, however,
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survives slowly. She begins to learn English. As she picks
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up the language, the villagers press her with questions, where
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are you from, why is your skin grain? And how
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did you come here? Her answers only complicate things further.
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She tells them she came from a land where the
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light was dim, the air thick with green twilight, a
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place where there someone where everyone shared the same skin
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tone as her and her brother. She calls it the
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land of Saint Martin. To the people of Ulpitt, it's
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as if she's describing a whole other world. The story
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of the Green Children didn't stay a local rumor. It
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was written down by two medieval chroniclers, William of Newburgh
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and Ralph of Coggleshaw cog Cogshaw. Both men were serious
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historians of their day, not storytellers by trade. That alone's
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part of what keeps this tale alive, because why would
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men of faith and scholarship bother recording what sounds like
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a fireside a fireside legend unless they believed there was
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something to it. Now, explanations range all over the place.
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Let's start with the practical. Some say the kids were
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simply Flemish orphans. All the time, there were Flemish immigrants
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living in England, and many were driven out or killed
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after political unrest. If the children's grants were among the victims,
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maybe the kids wandered off, ended up, lost and stumbled
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into wolpit. Their strange language, Flemish, their skin, their green skin,
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though possibly a sign of malnutrition, specifically something called green
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sickness or a chlorosis, which was linked to iron deficiency.
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That theory makes the whole story more tragic than mysterious.
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But that's not the only theory. Others learn lean towards
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folklore explanations. In medie Evil England, stories of fairies and
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other worldly beings were part of the daily life. A
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boy and girl with greenish skin showed up out of
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nowhere would fit right in with tales of children taken
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by fairies or slipping through into other world, another world
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by accident. The details about beings something that seems odd
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to us but matches old associations between fairies and certain crops.
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And then there's the stranger interpretations. Some suggest the children's
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tale hints at another realm entirely, whether that's a parallel dimension,
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some underground civilization, or even if you lean modern, an
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alien encounter retold in the language of the twelfth century.
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The girl's description of her homeland a twilight world where
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the sun never fully shines, sounds almost like she was
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talking about a place beneath the surface of the earth,
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or another world altogether. Every explanation has its holes. If
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they were Flemish, why didn't someone eventually recognize the language,
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If it was malnutrition, how did both children end up
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in the same condition, in the same place at the
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same time. And if it was just folklore, why did
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two respectable historians bother to even record it. That's what
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makes the Green Children such a persistent mystery. Each attempt
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at an answer just raises more questions. Why the story endures.
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So why are we still talking about the Green Children
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of Bulpit almost nine hundred years later? I mean, after all,
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plenty of medieval oddities have faded into obscurity, but this
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one refuses to die. Part of the reason is that
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it sits in that perfect crossroad between history and myth.
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On one hand, it's recorded by real chroniclers whose works
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are still studied today. Then on the other hand, the
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details are so strange they feel like they belong in
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a folk tale, not a historical account. That tension makes
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people want to dig deeper. It also hits on something universal.
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Universal Human beings are fascinated by the idea of the
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the other, whether that's people from far off lands, mysterious
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visitors from one ground, or beings from the stars. Stories
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like this force us to confront what we just don't understand.
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The Green Children are a mirror showing us how quickly
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fear turns into curiosity, and how curiosity eventually turns into legend.
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Another reason the story sticks is that it has no
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clean ending. The boy dies, the girl adapts, and then
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she fades into the background of English life. Some versions
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say she was baptized, learned language and lived a fairly
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ordinary life after her strange beginning. Others hint she never
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quite fit in that she remained a curiosity, maybe even mistrusted.
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That lack of closurely space for imagination and imagining is
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what fuels folklore across generations. And then, of course there's
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the modern angle. We live in a time where people
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talk about parallel universes, alien contact and hidden dimensions. And
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when you've put the Woolpit Children against that backdrop, their
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story suddenly feels less like a medieval oddity and more
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like a breadcrumb pointing toward bigger mysteries. Or they just
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lost kids with an iron deficiency, or were they something
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else entirely and visitors who stumbled into our world by accident.
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That's why the Green Children endoor. There's a riddle with
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just enough detail to feel real, just enough strangeness to
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spark endless debate. And that's the story of the Green
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Children of Wolpit. It's a quick one, a tale that
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refuses to sit quietly in the dusty corners of history.
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But it's real. It's there, it's in the history books.
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Were they Flemish orphans suffering from nutrition or were they
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figures from folklore, fairy children who slipped through the cracks,
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or were they, as some like to believe, evidence of
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another realm brushing up against our own. The truth is
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we will never know for certain, But maybe that's the
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whole point. Not every mystery exists to be solved. Some
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are meant to remind us how much of the world
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and history is still unexplained. If today's episode planning a
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seed in your mind, don't keep it yourself, share it
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with a friend, drop a review, or hit that follow
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button so you don't miss the next journey into the
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strange and the hidden. That's how this community grows, one
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curious mind at a time. I'm Bennett Tanton, and this
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has been broadcasting seeds until next time. Keep your eyes open,
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your mind sharp, and remember the truth often hides in
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plain sight, waiting for someone willing to look just a
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little closer.
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Who will its feel. The Reapers found.
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To children wandering lost, un sound, with garners, stray, change
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and faces, le and skin of the worldly green, oh, sing.
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Singing the tail. They told from twilight lands, where the
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sun burns cold through hollow hills.
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Through times on hand.
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They came from Saint Martin's Land. The boy grew, the
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girl remains.
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She learned our words.
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The true explained a dimlyt world where twilike stands, where
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bells wonder mark the days, oh see seeing the tale.
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They told from twilight lands, where.
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The sun burns call, through hollow hills, through times on hand.
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They came from Saint Martin's Land.