Sept. 18, 2025

The Green Children of Woolpit

The Green Children of Woolpit

This episode explores the mysterious tale of the green children of Woolpit, who appeared in medieval England with green skin and an unknown language. The narrative delves into their arrival, the theories surrounding their existence, and the reasons why this story has endured through the centuries. It highlights the intersection of history and folklore, human curiosity, and the unresolved nature of the mystery.

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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.