Loremen Podcast - S3 Ep43: Loremen S3 Ep43 - The Green Children of Woolpit

Episode Date: October 22, 2020

Alasdair takes us on a journey to the Otherworld. The tale begins at the Peak District's rudest tourist attraction, stops off at Yorkshire's sauciest Neolithic mound and then emerges from the "ancient cavities" of Suffolk. The Green Children of Woolpit raise more questions than they answer. Do aliens exist? Do fairies? What about Australians? What are they all about? Accent warning - the Loreblokes do a wide variety of Australian accents in this episode. Often within the same sentence.     Loreboys nether say die! ko-fi.com/loremen @loremenpod www.twitch.tv/loremenpod www.instagram.com/loremenpod www.facebook.com/loremenpod @JamesShakeshaft | @MisterABK

Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. I'm Alastair Beckett-King. And I'm James Shakeshaft. And James, do you like aliens? Er, depends what sort. Are they the friendly ones ones or are they the proby ones? All right, forget about aliens. How do you feel about fairies? Are they the friendly ones or the proby ones?

Okay, all right, forget that. How do you feel about historical oddities that can't be explained? Yeah, I like them. Sure, I love them. Great. The proby ones. Well, this story is called The Green Children of woolpit and it has all three whoa it's got the third heat it's a triple threat wow what is a triple threat singing dancing acting

or gun knife another gun hello to you james shakeshaft uh hello alist Beckett King. Sorry, have I just caught you there? Have I just blundered in on you? I started daydreaming and then I was roused from that reverie. Love to rouse a guy from a reverie. Very nice. I've got a Suffolk tale for you today. Suffolk?

Yes, Suffolk, south of Norfolk. It says Norfolk, Northfolk, Suffolk, Southfolk. Is there a Wefolk? Or an Ostfolk? No. Yeah. There's a Sussexolk? Or an Ostfolk? No. Yeah. There's a Sussex and a Wessex and a Nessex. There's no Nessex.

And there isn't a Wessex anymore, to be fair. No, not anymore, no. I'd like to tell you a tale, James. Yeah. Called The Green Children of Woolpit. The Green Children of Woolpit. Yep. It's set in Suffolk.

But first, in a Netflix-style, cold-open, pre-title sequence, I want to take you to Derbyshire. Oh, great. Yeah, not what you were expecting. No. This is bold, long-form storytelling. I'm taking you to Derbyshire, to a place called Hope Valley, specifically a place called Peak Cavern. Have you heard of it?

I've been there. You've been to Peak Cavern? I've been to Peak Cavern. Well, you'll know as well as I do that it is a site of much historic rope making for the nearby mines. Big time. And you may also know that it has another name. Oh, well, I do know the other name, but I think it'll have to be bleeped. This is the problem.

But it's written down on maps. Yeah, it is the name of the place. So the other name of Peak Cavern is The Devil's... And I think as a place name, we don't need to bleep that. But if we have bleeped it, it sounds worse than it is. That's true. If we're going to bleep The Devils,

to work out what it is of The Devils that this cave is named after, I should tell the listener that Westwood and Simpson said it was said to produce terrible gusts of wind from the hellfires within. That should be enough.

It's none of the facial orifices. Maybe you liked it. I don't know. Did you enjoy your time in Peak Cavern? We did. It was a bit expensive to get fully deep within the devil's... James, you speak in my language. The one Star Trip Advisor reviews completely agree with you about the price.

Yeah. Dawn and Dave33 say, It's nearly a tenner each to listen to some boring tour guy going on and on and on about some caves also the highlight of that is you might have thought i said boring tour guide i didn't they've written boring tour guy tour guy i think they think they're called tour guys i think that's what dawn and dave think they're called boring tour guy it's so sexist because what have you got? You've got the Boy Scouts and then you've got the Girl Guys. Andre1612 says

nothing to see, just two rocks. These are people that thought it was an actual... I don't know what they were expecting. Two rocks that resemble cheeks and then there's just this tiny little cave entrance. That's worth two stars at least. You and I, as people who know everything about the five

star tier system of scoring indeed we do if it's two rocks that's a two that's two stars that's two stars minimum two stars mean or one star if it's just one brown star yeah no we did we just sort of um in essence i suppose the devil because we just sort of went to the entrance. How do you think we're putting that in the podcast? I don't know. We just sort of tickled around the entrance to the devil. Well, William Camden's Britannia, translated in the early 17th century, says that the devil's a** gapeth with a wide, and hath in it many turnings and retiring rooms.

This hole is reckoned for one of the wonders of England. It is of unhuge wideness, exceeding steep, and of marvellous depth. But whosoever have written that there should be certain tunnels and breathing holes out of which winds do issue, they are much deceived. So William Candon contradicts the claim that devilish winds are emitted from the devil. But he had a lot of fun writing about how it was really wide.

I think he did enjoy the gayness. He was laughing to himself, chuckling away quite a lot. Oh, Billy Camden. Well, he did refer to himself as having a laughing spleen. So I think he did have quite a sense of humor. I can't remember who I was talking to but i was talking to someone about the devil's and they said that their i think it was their mum or dad attended choral recitals in the devil's choir in there wow so camden repeats uh in reference to pete cavan

he repeats a 13th century tale recorded by gervais of tilbury which tells of a shepherd not actually a shepherd he was a swineherd but they call him a shepherd for some reason who lost his pigs one winter and they ran off into the devil you had one john there are absolutely no stories about shepherds where they don't at some point lose or allow to die the sheep the best kind of shepherd is one that never has a story told about it. The best shepherds are the ones you never hear about. If I do my job, nobody notices. That's an accent that no shepherd has ever had. Right. A couple of weeks ago, we were a little bit worried

about animals flying out of bums. So now we've got a story about a whole herd of pigs going into a bum. Yep. That's because we run the full gamut of folklore from things coming out of bums to things going into bums. So the pigs made their way through the caves with the shepherd following, and he emerged from it into a very wide and large country

with riverettes and brooks running here and there through it and huge pools of dead and standing water. So as Camden Tilbury called it, the land of the Antipodes. And the strange thing about this place is that it was summer there, whereas it had been winter back in Derbyshire. The shepherd finds his sows and piglets suckling, I think, under a thorn tree. And the lord of the land, who was just there, says,

you want to take those back, mate? I'm giving an Australian accent because it's referred to as being the Antipodes. Yeah, and it was summer when it was winter. So it all checks out. So the lord of the land says, watcha? Spotted your pigs? Popped them here in case you wanted them. Mate!

Oh, fair go. Hey, mate, you lost a pig, have ya? Your lucky day. You ought to keep a closer eye on your pigs there, mate. And just like the president in The Simpsons, he was just standing like in the next field. The Prime minister. You want to keep a tide of rain on your swine.

So he took his pigs back, and when he returned to Derby, it was wintertime again. So the land that he went to was referred to as being the Antipodes. Also, it's been referred to as the Otherworld. Oh, the Otherworld. With a capital O, yeah. And the Otherworld is a magical land of the fairy where seasons are reversed, whereas the Antipodes is a magical land where seasons are reversed for purely practical reasons. Because of science.

Because of science. Now, the weird thing is, I've heard people say that when he says Antipodes, he means another planet, which I don't think is accurate. I don't think that's correct, because he means what we mean when we say Antipodes, which is the opposite side of the planet. The antipode, isn't it? The literal meaning of it is opposite feet, which some people say means backward feet, like we thought the people on the other side of the world had their feet backwards. Why? I think it means that their feet are opposite our feet. A 13th century translation of Bartholomew

Glanville's account described men that have their feet against our feet. Although some illustrators did show the Antipodean people's feet coming out of their heads. So who can say? What? It's very confusing. I mean, this is kind of talking about like the world being a sphere. But I mean, it was widely understood among educated people

that the world was a sphere for most of history. The idea that we all used to think it was flat is a myth yeah exactly it's almost like you're making it a little bit more difficult with your analogies there mates was his name bartholomew glanville glanville what yeah he introduced the word antipodean the english language and what are you done james you're happy to throw stones oh yeah, yeah, that's true. Have you invented any words? No, I don't think I've invented anything. I've tried to further some words. Let me have a think. Safe.

Safe to mean a good thing. Oh, that was you, was it, that invented that? Amongst other people, yeah. I was part of that movement. So why did I tell you any of that, James? It's really fun. That was your pre-title sequence. Because you're trying to get points on the names, is that why?

James, I do not need them. No? Just you wait. Whoa. The Green Children of Woolpit is a really interesting story. It appears first as history and then as folklore and finally as evidence of alien abduction. Wow.

Yeah, it really runs the gamut from going into to coming out of the bottom it takes place in the 12th century towards the end of king stephen's reign maybe into henry the second the timeline is a bit fuzzy but basically we're talking cad file times if you're a fan of cad file there was a king steve yeah king steve was always playing pogs king steve the first yeah he's the first and last and they went we're not doing that again we'll just stick with Henry's from now on please no more Stevens yeah there's a King Stephen

have you not seen Cadfile no what no I didn't like Cadfile you what I was how has our relationship

got this far without me knowing that you hate my hero my personal hero Cadfile I'm mortally afraid of Derek Jacoby why I think what it is is my dad made me watch iClaudius hero, Cadfile. I'm mortally afraid of Derek Jacoby.

Why? I think what it is, is my dad maybe watched iClaudius when I was very young, and he's Caligula in that. Yeah, the robot, yeah. Yeah, I've seen it, yeah. Creepy, isn't he? And then his head comes off at the end and all white stuff comes out. I know all the British actors. Yeah, there's milk everywhere, it's weird.

I know about Roman history, yeah. Yep, I think I know a thing or two about history. Yeah, so I'm afraid of Jacobi, Mr. Majika and all that. So yeah, not a fan of the CAD files. All right. They should reboot that for the modern age as the CAD files. Reboot that for the modern age with a 20 years out of date reference to X-Files. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.

So that's the time and the village of wool pit takes its name from some very ancient cavities called wolf pits wolf yeah so it's not wool like a woolly woolly sheep as our antipodean friends would would have assumed it's wolf and so wolf pits were dug in the ground uh and in fact they're also used in battle you know those pits that there was a spike at the bottom that you fall into? Oh, yeah. In a video game? Yep, yep, yep. That's a wolf pit or named after a wolf pit. I'm just imagining the one from Prince of Persia. Yeah.

Yeah. And he's on that really cool pose, though, when he falls on the spikes. Yeah. So relaxed. Anyway. So basically, big holes for trapping wolves in. There used to be wolves in Britain back then, a very long time ago. Yes.

And dug very deep. They'd put leaves over them and a carcass. The wolf would go on, fall in, and could easily be killed. Or at least trapped. But they'd obviously been around for a long time

because they were very ancient still in the 12th century. Right. Two children were found wandering by the reapers of Woolpit. So this is harvest time. And the kids were found wandering in a day.

It's a boy and a girl. They couldn't speak English and they were clad in garments of a strange colour and unknown materials. Depending on the account, they either emerged from the excavations

or were just found near them. Emerging from them will be particularly impressive because the whole point of a wolf pit is that it's so deep that a wolf can't get out. You'd also think

a small child would be less good at jumping than a wolf. I don't know. Yeah, I would have thought a wolf would be better at jumping because it's got twice as many legs.

Exactly, yeah. But the strangest thing about these children, and I hope the name of the story hasn't given it away, is that they had green skin. Oh, I thought you were going to say that their clothes were green. No, indeed, their skin was green. They were totocopori virides, according to one historian. That is that their entire bodies were green.

Or Prasinum colorum, according to another, that is that they were leek-coloured, a sort of pale green. Oh, a nice green. Yeah. And the reason I'm giving you two accounts is that what's striking about this as a bit of history is that it was recorded by two contemporary writers around the turn of the 13th century.

Right. And they are, I'm going to throw some names at you, so get your brain ready to receive them. Mm-hmm. Ralph of Cogsall. Oh, yeah. Presumably from the village of Cogsall, which was village of the year 2003, as I'm sure you're aware.

Yeah. And William of Newborough, also known as William of Newbury, also known as William of Newbridge, also known as William Parvis, also known as as Guilhelmus Newbridgensis. What? Also known as Wilhelmus de Nova Bergo. Also known as five points in the category of names. Why is he translating himself? Is he twinned with all those different countries?

He's also known as William of Newburgh in podcasts by Americans about this story. Because this is not a famous piece of folklore, but because of the alien connection, there are quite a lot of podcasts about it. And he seems to universally be referred to as William of Newburgh because it's spelt like Edinburgh, B-U-R-G-H, which as all British people know is pronounced Burra, not Berg. I phoned newborough priory yesterday just to check how it was pronounced and it's pronounced newborough come on americans do your research of course we we don't really know how people talked in the 12th century so also 13th century so billy newborough n bizzle so he was born uh well there's some argument about where i bet there is some argument

about the name of the place that he was born. It's probably in Yorkshire, not far from Willie Howe. Remember Willie Howe? Willie Howe? And did you know that Willie Howe is in the parish of Thwing? Did you know that? T-H-W-I-N-G, Thwing. Thwing. Thwing, of course, you'll know, was the birthplace in 1320 of John Twenge.

That definitely sounds like we should be bleeping it. I know. John Twenge. The Twenge sounds like it's just to the side of the devil's... Just underneath it. Between the devil's side of the devil's... Just underneath it. Between the devil's... and the devil's... John Twenge, of course, also known as John Thwing. What were they thwinking?

That's what I was building to there. Nice. That's just to give you a bit of background on William of Newborough. The important thing about both of these guys is that they were pretty serious historians. And I'm going to read a mid-19th century translation of some of their story to you. So Ralph of Coggesill tells the story of what happened to the children according to them. They came to a certain cavern, on entering which they heard a delightful sound of bells, ravished by whose sweetness they went for a long time wandering on through the cavern until they

came to its mouth. When they came out of it, they were struck senseless by the excessive light of the sun and the unusual temperature of the air, and they lay thus for a long time. According to Ralph, that's how they were found by the reapers, who took them in and they took them to a knight called Sir Richard de Calme, who adopted them. But they couldn't feed them because the kids rejected all food until they saw someone bringing in beans that were still on stalks. And they were very excited. They grabbed ahold of them and they tried to cut open the stalks of the beans to look for beans inside. And they couldn't find any until they were shown how you pop open the pods. Like when you take someone to a Japanese restaurant for the first time.

Exactly. And they haven't seen edamame beans before. And Ralph says they opened the pods and showed them the naked beans. Or farbus nudus in Latin. Children? Yeah. them the naked beans or fabus nudis in latin children yeah and they ate those beans and gradually after getting used to our food they lost their green color and started to look like normal humans and they also learned to speak english according to coxell being frequently asked about the people of her country the girl asserted that the inhabitants and all they had in that country were of a green colour. They told people that the country they came from was called St. Martin's Land, which has variously been identified with the Antipodes and outer space and the other world.

Has anyone checked with Greenland? I think Greenland is just PR, isn't it? Because they went there and it was very not green, so they called it Greenland to make it more marketable. William of Newborough has the best description of St. Martin's Land. Being questioned whether in that land they believed in Christ or whether the sun rose, they replied that the country was Christian and possessed churches, but they said,

The sun does not rise upon our countrymen. Our land is little cheered by its beams. We are contented with that twilight, which among you precedes the sunrise or follows the sunset. Moreover, a certain luminous country is seen, not far distant from ours, and divided from it by a very considerable river. So they lived in a strange land,

which was in a permanent twilight. So they regained their pink, ruddy complexion thanks to eating our food. And some people take that as evidence that they were fairies, because famously fairies are forbidden from eating mortal food, and vice versa, lest we end up trapped in the other world, or lest the fairies end up trapped here.

It turns out quite sadly for the kids, because the boy dies shortly after being baptised, but the girl grew up and was allegedly a bit of a top lad, a bit of a player, but eventually settled down and got married. So most people have concluded that they were humans rather than fairies or indeed aliens. Right. Did she have any kids? She may have.

There may be people who are descended from one of the green children. At least one person thinks that she grew up to be called Agnes and thinks they've traced her marriage. Really? Apparently she married someone in what was then called Lynn and is now Kings Lynn. So someone in Norfolk, it probably related. And we know how things are in Norfolk. The genes probably haven't gone that far. Yeah.

It's probably related to... Agnes. One of the green children. Oh. And I've emphasised this is serious history because, although Cogsel and Newborough both do include outlandish stories in their texts, those are things that people would have found plausible at the time. Cogsell tells the story of two great hollow stones that were cracked open.

One of them revealed a brace of greyhounds. And I want you to guess, what do you think was in the other one? I'll give you a clue. It's an animal and a piece of jewellery. Oh, an orangutan with a nice anklet. No, it was a frog wearing a necklace, but good try. I wasn't that far off. You were quite close.

You were quite close. No, I don't actually know if it was wearing the necklace, but it was a frog and a necklace. Frog and a necklace. Frog in a choker. That'd be the worst bit of jewellery for a frog. They're all neck.

That's their thing. Yeah, yeah. Nubra also tells a story about someone who heard a party going on inside Willie Howe and found a door in the side of it and went in there to find fairies having a party. Yes. And then came out with a fairy cup. Do you know that story?

Yeah, I think I came across that in that Amy Gledl episode when I was... Of course, yeah. I was just really, I was looking up funny place names, but I happened to notice that Willie Howe had a little story. It's a good story. It's probably a Neolithic mound, a Neolithic burial mound. Yes. But John Clarke suggests, and it is really worth Googling,

the look of Eden Hall. Oh, yeah. Which is a goblet that might resemble the kind of fairy cup the writers were thinking of, which I think sort of Egyptian or Syrian beautifully coloured glasswork that was around in England, you know, many, many hundreds of years ago, but would have been absolutely baffling and absolutely unlike any of the glassware the people had ever seen.

And so perhaps they saw these wonderful products and assumed that they came from fairyland. There's a few of those um luck of blanks around in old houses aren't there and there there's one that's a plate like a glass a fat very fancy glass plate and one that's a gobbler and it is really like there's all like legends to do with it and it seems like it's a bit like your mum being like that's the best those are the best cups do not touch them because and then just go because they're made by fairies and fairies will get you if you break them and then that's become the truth this story was not really told as a piece of folklore as far as

i can tell it didn't it wasn't really part of the oral tradition like most of our folks tales we talk about were it was a piece of history until people started to write about it. So in 1638, there's Francis Godwin's The Strange Voyage and Adventures of Domingo Gonzales to the World and the Moon. That is nice. Which is an English language translation about the crazy things they get up to on the moon. But one of the things they do is when they have children who are like to be of a wicked and debauched humour, they send them, I know not by what means, into the earth and change them for

other children. So he comes up with a sort of sci-fi explanation for the changeling myth, specifically referencing the history of Neuberdegensis, specifically referencing this story as his inspiration for that idea. I would guess catapult. story as his inspiration for that idea i would guess catapult and so because of that people think this this could be the very beginning the very seed from which the story of little green men from mars grows other people speculate that these were human abductees by aliens dyed green by the strange vittles they'd been living on in space yeah and finally returned like that family that um only ate tomato soup and turned orange. Yeah, or that kid who had too much sunny delight.

Yes. St. Martin's Land, a.k.a. the Antipodes, a.k.a. the other world. I thought a bit of information about St. Martin. Yeah, what's he the saint of? He's the patron saint of geese. Of course. How did Domingo Gonzales get to the moon? Big flock of geese.

He flew by geese? Or swans. It's not quite clear. St. Martin, I didn't know about St. Martin of Tours. His thing is he saw a freezing beggar and he felt sorry for him, so he cut his cloak in two and he gave half of it to the beggar. And then later he had a dream that that beggar was Jesus, which is not really a miracle.

No. It's more of a dream is what that was. How do you go from that to being this patron saint of geese? It's more of a brag that people didn't really go for, so he beefed it up later on. Yeah, I gave it to the beggar. People were like, we're not bothered. Also, the beggar was Jesus.

Okay. Does that do anything for you? Okay, have my geese. And so he had all the geese. St. Martin's Summer. Martinmas is Old Halloween, also known as the funeral of St. Martin on the 11th of November. The phrase St. Martin's Summer refers to that little hot period

at the end of autumn, just before winter, when everything's quite nice. And it's sort of associated with the idyllic land of the other world, where things are on the border between night and day. The weather goes wrong. Yeah, exactly. They all links, James. There's so many theories about this story. I can't possibly do all of them justice. Paul Harris's hypothesis is one of the most famous, which is that where is St. Martin's Land? Where did the kids come from? There's a small village called Farnham

St. Martin, which is nine miles away from Walpit oh and that's kind of annoying it's a 15 minute drive on the A14 or a three hours walk so it's quite possible they came from there he hypothesizes that they were Flemish children whose parents had been killed in the battle of Farnham and that Flemish dying techniques which were particularly impressive explained their strange clothes oh but they'd slightly leaked onto the clothes because it was raining and it looked like they had... Well, it doesn't explain the greenness. It's a bit of a tricky one because, I mean, it's hard to imagine that if someone came from a village that's 10 miles away, they wouldn't eventually be identified as being from a village 10 miles away.

Especially if they were green. Yeah. There's various explanations for the greenness. The most popular one historically was chlorosis, also known as green sickness. But the only problem with that is that it's not a real thing. Green sickness is also known as the virgin's disease.

Oh, hello. That sounds like it was made up by my bullies at secondary school. It's called virgin's disease. It's more sexist than that. It's young women being all, oh, being all a bit uppity. And the cure for it

is getting married, basically. Well, there's a ballad called, and this gives you a sense of quite how classy the whole business is, Young dams are cured of the green sickness by a lusty gallant who happened to meet her in the midst of Enfield Common. Yeah. I see. So green sickness was something that happened to young women, not children,

and most importantly, it wasn't real. It didn't turn you green. Some people think they were the babes in the wood. Weyland Wood is where the babes in the wood were lost. That's in Norfolk, not that far away. Maybe they'd been poisoned with arsenic and survived, and that had turned them green. Except arsenic doesn't turn you green.

John Clarke, who wrote basically a short book about all of this, which is very interesting, suggests favism, which is allergy to beans. It's like a form of anemia triggered by bean pollen which is very rare in england but quite common in sicily and sardinia in the middle east and so would tie into the idea that they were from somewhere else right wouldn't explain why they liked beans so much maybe they'd had a lot of beans and that they happened to like beans but they also had what was it called fav Favreau. Favreism.

Favreism. There's loads of competing explanations for it. William Newborough says, I was so overwhelmed by the weight of so many and such competent witnesses that I've been compelled to believe and wonder over a matter which I was unable to comprehend or unravel by any powers of intellect. So we don't know what happened, but something did. I saw a green man once.

Yeah? It would have been the late 90s at oxford train station oh yeah it was quite busy and i was on one side on a platform it's only two platforms isn't it oxford train station is it yeah but they're called three and four that's confusing yeah so you walk out to like your first platform it's really annoying when you go to a train station and the first platform you come to is not number one i agree very confusing thank you for being a voice of reason yeah in these crazy times james hey someone's got to say it but you know no i saw a greenman um at yeah oxford train station mid 90s um looked looking across the platform into the cafe bit and there were a few people

in there and there was this one tall quite thin man and his skin was a very pale green like not quite not jaundiced which would be yellow but but definitely a pale green like like i would say the color of a leak oh not the not the dark leafy bit, but the bit near towards the white end. Yeah. Like your colour of a spring onion or a Welsh onion or whatever they're called somewhere, aren't they? Scallions, they're called in America,

which is a really cool name, I think. It is. It sounds like a pirate. Why ye scallions? Ah, ye scallions and your topping on me ramen. It really, like, I thought, oh, maybe it's the light because it was like a dodgy fluorescent light in this cafe, but everyone else looked kind of normal, Hugh.

But this guy is oddly green. Everyone else looked like normal Hugh, the person who was a reference. You know that guy? Yeah. And it's really stuck with me, that green man. I think about him quite regularly. Chilling. Yeah. Wonder where he is. Don't know. Didcot Park me, that Green Man. I think about him quite regularly. Chilling. Yeah.

Wonder where he is. Don't know. Didcot Parkway, probably. Yeah. Yes. Just knocking around Bicester Village. I remember being stuck for ages in Didcot Parkway. It's on what used to be called, probably isn't now, the Great Western line.

Everything around it has been knocked down, but there used to be a large building there, an old Victorian warehouse with a sign saying, Home of the Great Western Society. i remember looking at it and thinking it really is hard to see what al-qaeda hate about it so much that's a long walk for a very silly joke but how did it get knocked down well it's score time james yeah let's get it scored what would you be prepared to give me in the category of naming? Well, I think I've showed my hands.

I've revealed my cards. I think you have shown me your hands, and your hands have five fingers, and it is five out of five. Yeah. That's what I think. Can I just say that my hands have five fingers on each hand? Yeah, yeah, not in total. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, New Bridgesis.

What a name. That's a bit... Domingo Gonzalez. That's great. The devil's... Tour guys. Hey, tour guys. Oh, what do they think about blind people with their guide dogs?

Got to be a big laugh around Dawn and Dave's house. I hope they listen. Tour guys. Five out of five for names. I'll they listen. Tour guys. Five out of five for names. I'll take that. Category of the second is supernatural. Right. Right then.

Aliens. Dimensional travel. Fairies. A magic cup. Australians. It's pretty... It's all... So many fantastical creatures.

Unbelievable. Yeah. You're sounding sceptical because there wasn't a ghost. That's what's happening here. Yeah, I sounding sceptical because there wasn't a ghost. That's what's happening here. Yeah, I am sceptical because there wasn't a ghost. Whoa. A giant hollow rock with two dogs in it and a frog and a necklace. A frog and a necklace, frog and a necklace. Over in the

other rock. It's like a giant kinder egg made of stone is what that is. It does sound like the latest craze. Rocks. Hollow rocks. What have you got? A couple of racing dogs? Or a frog in a necklace for the lady? Come on, that's magical. Yeah, that is pretty magical.

There's no... A fairy cup. A fairy cup. But we've already established that that is just from a different country. Yeah, right. That's just foreign. I like the Twilight Land. Yeah, St. Martin's Land. With a glowing city. I like the Twilight Land. Yeah, St. Martin's Land.

With a glowing city nearby, like Oz or something. Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty cool. And everything's green. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. It's Oz, isn't it? It's very Oz.

Oz as in Wizard of Oz, not Oz as in the prison drama. Or Australia. Hey. Although it is quite like Australia because it's also the Antipodes. It all links, James. Yeah. It links spookily well. Have we stumbled across that or was that their intentions? hey although it is quite like australia because it's also the antipodes it all links james yeah it links spookily well have we stumbled across that or was that their intentions i think we've just cracked this case wide open do i need to go down to the craft cupboard and get my red bits of

string out everything links we've cracked it like a big rock with two dogs in we've cracked it wide open like the devil's this thing this thing's been blown wide open what have you got for me then james have you got a pitiful pair of greyhounds or have you got one i prize most highly a frog wearing a necklace aka five out of five yeah okay uh yeah it's five i'm i'm reeling from our own sherlock holmesingness yeah on case. And it doesn't matter what the category is. It's five out of five. I'm on a high. Yeah, I don't think I've ever got five out of five

in a supernatural category without a ghost. Not for supernatural. No, because you never pick a darn ghost. You never pick a damn ghost, mate. You think Australians are supernatural enough. My next category, which ties in, Summit Happened. Summit Happened, mate.

Summit Happened. Summit definitely happens. Summit Happened. Summit Happened, mate. Summit Happened. Summit definitely happened. Summit Happened. Summit Happened. You know, these guys are from Yorkshire, so that's how they would have said it probably. Summit Happened. Peak Cave is near a peak. Peak Cavern is near High Peak.

I think something happened. Yes, Summit definitely happened. You know, we've got two serious historians making a serious effort to record things that actually happened, speaking to people and checking their sources. I think two kids got lost. I think that happened. I don't think two children were catapulted from the moon by a mysterious alien race. No?

That decided they were a bit annoying. All right, Mr. Cynical. I don't think two annoying kids got catapulted from the moon, but I do think maybe some kids went missing. Yeah. And that is something happening. Yeah. Something happened. Something happened.

Even if it was two kids, they got lost. They fell in a wolf pit. They climbed out. It was quite mossy. They got covered in moss juice, which turned their skin slightly green. They might have been wearing shell suits. Maybe the shell suits thing, That's a red herring. Or those colour change jumpers that we had in the 90s.

Global Hypercolour. Global Hypercolour, that's the one. My mate had Global Hypercolour shorts. Yeah, that's... You don't want that. There's going to be some concentration in the crotch zone. Just sort of went yellow over his twenge. To use the scientific name.

Summit definitely happened. Yep. Four. Because we don't quite know what summit it was. Don't think it was aliens. And my final category is Australian hipsters. Oh, mate. Mate.

These two kids, these two fellas, they come here from the Antipodes, from the green land of Oz. In the Antipodes, according to some records, they don't eat meat over there. Very picky eaters. They're like, oh, no, we can't eat bread. Oh, no, I can't have bread. I'm gluten free.

Oh, I'm trying to eat the inside of a stalk instead of the beans themselves. It's actually the best bit. As the stalks were being pulled away, they were going, look, no, mate, they're antioxidant. Couple of little vegan hipsters from Australia. My dinner is cruelty free. My strange clothes, probably like a hemp shorts. Yes. And I'm now just describing clothes I own.

One of them sort of woolen hoodies. Maybe like ethically sourced, like the sheep was tired of the wool, wanted to give it. Yes, a very charitable sheep. I know personally, we're good friends. Why are they green? It's possible it was just a tan and the people of Suffolk had never seen one before.

They were probably bronzed. Aussie hipsters. Aussie hipster. No, we don't want to go to the Walkabout Bar. That's all I can imagine an Aussie hipster would say. No, we don't want to go to the Walkabout Bar. That's all I can imagine an Aussie hipster would say. No, we're not going to go to the Walkabout Bar. Why would an Australian want to go to Walkabout? That is fair.

A little taste of home, mate. I don't know. Do you want to go to a grim parody of England? Yeah, I'll go into the Red Lion. They've got cooked breakfast. You have a whole sausage in your pint, a black pudding float. I mean, they're doing a lot of legwork, these Aussie hipsters. Yep.

So I'm going to give them two points each, so that's a full total of four points. All right. They could have been more hipsters. They could have been like, we hide down in wolf pits before anyone else did or something. They're from like, we're from St. Martin Land. You wouldn't have heard of it.

Yeah, it's kind of underground. It is underground. It is very underground. They're literally underground. Yeah, I think you are definitely creaking up to more points. I'm going to give it a five. But that would slightly annoy those Aussie hipsters. They'd probably prefer to be underrated.

No, five out of five. Fantastic. You're welcome, Australia. This is worthy of round the twist. Oh, have you ever, ever felt like this? You've been listening to Lawmen with me, Alistair Beckett-King. And me, James Shakeshaft. And next week, we've got a live episode for you on Thursday.

Thursday, the 29th of October. 2020. 2020. Very spooky story. Field report. Fascinating familial revelation from James. Definitely. You're going to find out my great-grandad's first name.

It is not what you expect it to be. Join us at twitch.tv forward slash lawmen pod. Yeah, that'd be lovely. See you there, folks. Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. I'm Alistair Beckett-King. And I'm James Shakeshaft. And this episode, I always get to this point and then realise I haven't planned what I'm going to say. Every single time. I just can't do it.

I always am surprised. He must have had a little think about what he's going to say. He's not stopping little think about what he's gonna say he's not he's not stopping to think about it no no just launching right into it you're very good at pausing while you're talking you however very very staccato in your speech it's very easy to edit i am staccato in my speech aren't i i've noticed that from an edit point of view it's like oh there's a gap between each noise like a simple little robot every word enunciated separately i am good at talking i just recorded all the different phonetic sounds we can assemble any story we want from those from the lot from the bank yes the library of noises i think it'd be easier to do that for you though because everyone would just

be like and the cupboard opened containing dust yeah. You'd wear out the tape on dust. And it crumbled into dust. Dust. Dust. It must be dust.