Monk and devil in the Smithfield Decretals.
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“Some other wonderful and astonishing occurrences have happened in our times, of which I shall mention a few. I call things of this nature wonderful, not merely on account of their rarity, but because some latent meaning is attached to them.”
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“On splitting a vast rock, with wedges, in a certain quarry, there appeared two dogs, but, without any [opening to breathe whatsoever], filling up the cavity of the rock which contained them. They seemed of that species which are called harriers, but of fierce countenance, disagreeable smell, and without hair. They report that one of them soon died; but that the other, having a most ravenous appetite, was for many days [held] by Henry, bishop of Winchester.”
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“It is related, that in another quarry, while they were digging very deep for materials for building, there was found a beautiful double stone, that is, a stone composed of two stones, joined with some very adhesive matter. Being shown, by the wondering workmen, to the bishop, who was at hand, it was ordered to be split, that its mystery (if any) might be [understood]. In the cavity, a little reptile, called a toad, having a small golden chain around its neck, was discovered. When the bystanders were lost in amazement at such an unusual occurrence, the bishop ordered the stone to be closed again, thrown into the quarry, and covered up with rubbish forever.”
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“In the province … not far from the place of my nativity, an extraordinary event occurred, which I have known from my childhood. There is a village, some miles distant from the Eastern Ocean, near which those famous waters … every alternate year spring from the ground at various sources … and, forming a considerable current, glide over the low lands into the sea: it is a good sign when these streams are dried up, for their flowing is said unquestionably to portend the disaster of a future scarcity.
A certain rustic belonging to the village, going to see his friend, who resided in the neighbouring hamlet, was returning, a little intoxicated, late at night; when, behold, he heard, as it were, the voice of singing and revelling on an adjacent hillock, which I have often seen, and which is distant from the village only a few furlongs. Wondering who could be thus disturbing the silence of midnight with noisy mirth, he was anxious to investigate the matter more closely; and perceiving in the side of the hill an open door, he approached, and, looking in, he beheld a house, spacious and lighted up, filled with men and women, who were seated, as it were, at a solemn banquet. One of the attendants, perceiving him standing at the door, offered him a cup: accepting it, he wisely forbore to drink; but, pouring out the contents, and retaining the vessel, he quickly departed.
A tumult arose among the company, on account of the stolen cup, and the guests pursued him; but he escaped by the fleetness of his steed, and reached the village with his extraordinary prize. It was a vessel of an unknown material, unusual color, and strange form: it was offered as a great present to Henry the elder, king of England and then handed over to the queen's brother, David, king of Scotland, and deposited for many years among the treasures of his kingdom; and, a few years since, as we have learnt from authentic relation, it was given up by William, king of the Scots, to Henry II, on his desiring to see it.
These and similar matters would appear beyond belief, were they not proved to have taken place by credible witnesses.”
Such things, as I said, are wondrous, not only for their rarity, but because of some meaning that is attached to them.
Today, it being the season of Halloween, we talk about such things.
Hello, and welcome. My name is Devon, and this is Human Circus: Journeys in the Medieval World, the podcast that usually follows the stories of medieval travellers and digs into the history surrounding them, a podcast with a Patreon, where you can find early, ad-free, and extra listening for as little as a dollar a month, and you can do so at a patreon.com/humancircus. Thank you to all of you who have already done so.
And now, back to the story.
Except that today we aren’t going back to the main story, that of Fernao Mendes Pinto, not until next time. Today, as it’s the time of Halloween, we pause a moment for some thematically appropriate material, and we dip into the supernatural.
Our source today is one which I’ve referenced before on the podcast, on a previous Halloween, and here and there over the years at other times as well. It’s the chronicle of William of Newburgh, the 12th-century historian and priest from the coast of Yorkshire, England.
William is best known to us as the writer of the History of English Affairs, a chronicle of events in England from 1066-1198. There, he wrote of the period of strife known as The Anarchy, when those in support of Stephen’s claim to the throne clashed violently over a period of many years with those of his cousin Empress Matilda. He wrote of the bishop turned bandit-warlord named Wimund, who I’ve talked about somewhere in the early bonus episodes. He wrote of the killing of Conrad of Montferrat by order of the “Old Man of the Mountain,” and of the entrance of Salah ad-Din into Jerusalem. He wrote of examples of revenants, or the risen dead, which came up on a previous Halloween episode.
William also wrote of certain strange occurrences of the sort you just heard—of live dogs contained in rock, of that peculiar and unfortunate toad that was so hastily reburied, of a story he remembered from childhood, in which a man out at night happened to stumble upon a faerie banquet, or something of the sort, in a secluded hillside. And these cases were not alone in his depiction of matters outside of the acceptable order of things, events which he could not easily explain or understand. One of these cases was that of the green children. We’ll start there.
William was initially doubtful about the entire affair. He, quote:
“...deemed it ridiculous to give credit to a circumstance supported on no rational foundation, or at least one of a very mysterious character; yet, at length,” he went on, “I was so overwhelmed by the weight of so many and such competent witnesses, that I have been compelled to believe, and wonder over a matter, which I was unable to comprehend, or unravel, by any powers of intellect.”
What he wrote had been seen by many witnesses and was indeed well known, by his telling, to have taken place in King Stephen’s England, placing events somewhere in the two decades between 1135 and 1154. Despite his doubts, it did not seem right to him to “pass over an unheard-of prodigy” of such renown. Perhaps you have heard the story, as it does spread sometimes as a bit of intriguing folklore, and indeed, if you happen to live near the village of Woolpit, you might see a reminder of it quite regularly.
William’s story takes us to East Anglia, to a village, distant some “four or five miles from the noble monastery of the blessed king and martyr, Edmund.” There were holes dug there, “very ancient cavities,” wrote William, that were intended to trap wolves, and which had given the village its name.
It was during the harvest that it happened, at that time when the people of the village were out gathering what they had grown in the fields, a time of importance in a great many such stories, and I suppose out of them as well.
During harvest, when the people were out on the fields, two children suddenly appeared from the wolf-pits, one girl and one boy, both unfamiliar to the villagers, both strangers, their clothing the same strange colour and of unknown materials, their bodies, from all that was visible, entirely green.
The green children came wandering across the field, staring about them in apparent astonishment until they were grabbed and taken to the village. Everyone wanted to come see them, to look upon so novel a sight, so they were kept there, but without food, without eating. They were clearly starving and exhausted, worn out by lack of sustenance, but no matter what was presented to them, they would not accept it. And this went on for days.
It went on in this way until one of the local gatherers happened in from the fields with beans—they brought not just the pod, it sounds like, but also the plant, for when the children snatched at it, they looked closely at the stalk, searching its hollow for the beans they clearly expected to find there. Finding nothing, they wept in despair, only recovering when some villagers shelled the beans and showed the children how to eat them. And so it went until the children “learnt use of bread,” a process which we are told took “many months.”
It was a curious little episode, this one of the beans and bread, perhaps one simply meant to convey just how weird, just how otherworldly these green children had seemed, how removed from the ordinary.
Over time, by degrees, and by means of “the natural effect of our food,” wrote William, the children “became like ourselves, and also learnt our language.” They became, at length, familiar and of this world. It was thought by some that they should be baptized, and so they were. They were asked who they were and where they had come from.
"We are inhabitants of the land of St. Martin, who is regarded with peculiar veneration in the country which gave us birth," they were said to have replied. And when asked where that land was, and how they had arrived from there, they answered, "We are ignorant of both those circumstances. We only remember this, that on a certain day, when we were feeding our father's flocks in the fields, we heard a great sound, such as we are now accustomed to hear at St. Edmund's, when the bells are chiming, and [while] listening to the sound in admiration, we became … entranced, and found ourselves among you in the fields where you were reaping."
They were asked whether the people in that place they came from believed in Christ, and whether the sun arose there as it did here, and they replied that the country was Christian, with many churches, but, quote, "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 sun-rise, 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."
These, and many other things, too numerous, apparently, to mention, they are said to have spoken to those who asked. “Let every one say as he pleases,” reflected William, “and reason on such matters according to his abilities. I feel no regret at having recorded an event so prodigious and miraculous.”
As for what became of them, the boy, who seemed the younger of the two, did not survive for long after the baptism, but the girl, referred to by William as his sister, did. She, quote, “continued in good health, and differed not in the least from the women of our own country. Afterwards, as it is reported, she was married at King’s Lynn, and was living a few years since, at least, so they say.”
Little details like that last one help reconnect the story to the realm of the real and rational, the stuff of every day, having happened just down the road, but it was still all very troubling, and people wondered how it was possible, much as one might today. They just had a different range of potential explanations to reach for.
“If the magicians,” wrote William, “were able by Egyptian incantations, and some secret cooperation of evil angels, to turn rods into serpents, [to turn] water into blood, and to produce newly-formed frogs, yet, as [Augustine says], we do not call these magicians the actual creators either of serpents or frogs, as [farmers] are not the makers of their harvests.”
Only God could “form and produce a creature from the farthest and remotest link in the chain of causes,” he wrote, but evil angels or evil [people] might do so by his permission, managing illusion and magic, as he then labelled the revels at the hilltop, or reality itself, as he said of the dogs, the toad with the golden chain, and, interestingly, the cup taken from that hilltop.
By these, he said, people “may be held in blind amazement, and evil angels, when permitted, readily do those things, whereby [people] may be more dangerously deceived.”
Regarding the green children, there have been various attempts at explaining the story, from faeries to aliens, a symbolic vehicle for contemporary commentary perhaps, or modern assessments of missing children, sickness, and possibly also foul play. As for William himself, he deemed them “too [obscure] for the weakness of our abilities to fathom.” “These and similar matters would appear beyond belief,” he wrote, “were they not proved to have taken place by credible witnesses.”
After this quick break, we’ll dig into other “similar matters.”
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There were some events of which William was sceptical, some which he would not have believed were it not for the number or quality of those who attested to their truth, some for which he could offer no explanation as to their cause or meaning. Others, were more easily come to grips with, at least in retrospect.
William’s was a world of signs and signifiers, a rain of blood, for example, as the king oversaw construction of a castle. It was a natural world alive with meaning, and so William had seen for himself.
When Richard I had been held prisoner, and England had, quote, “groaned under complicated affliction on account of the king's captivity,” that evil had been foreshadowed by portents in the air. That January of 1192, there was a fiery redness streaked with white in the cloudless night sky, which seemed ablaze, so that the stars themselves were as if stained with blood.
It lasted, this, quote, “dreadful appearance [that] possessed the eyes and minds of the beholders with astonishment throughout all the borders of England for nearly the space of two hours, [until] by degrees gently vanishing it disappeared, leaving much conjecture concerning it.”
And in February of the following year, while the king was held captive, though William notes that it was not generally known in England, a similar omen appeared, visible throughout the land in the same part of the sky. It was just after midnight. Or in William’s telling and in a reminder of how time was then divided—and still is depending on your religion and observance—when “the religious orders were chanting their customary praises to God.”
William wrote that people across the provinces were alarmed by the red glow at their windows and rushed to see if some nearby building was burning, but seeing the “dreadful portent,” they returned to their prayers. They wondered at first at what it might mean, but then came the news of the king’s captivity, and they knew. When the same thing happened again early in November, they were again terrified, but a little less so, “for now they were accustomed to it, though it was the cause of increased conjecture and suspicion.”
It was not the only such report in William’s chronicle.
One summer morning in 1196, mid June and early in the day, he and those in his company had personally witnessed a sign in the skies. “Two suns,” he said this time, that “appeared in the heavens; namely, the true sun and a second, its equal in size and brilliancy. Nor,” he continued, “was it easy to discern which of them was the true one, unless by its regular course; for the other appeared to follow it at a little higher elevation.”
William described standing for a time, “gazing at so unusual a spectacle in suspense and amazement.” Then, as if “overcome with fatigue they were casting down our eyes, [when] the counterfeit of the true sun vanished away.”
It was, he thought, “a presage, perchance, of the evils, which ensued,” and indeed it was not long after this had happened that the period of truce which had held was ended. “The bloodthirsty rage of the princes once more broke out,” wrote William. “To arms rushed every one at full speed, and the provinces lately so flourishing were devastated by fire and sword.” Castles were stormed and fell, and those urging peace went unheard. “The more these proud princes chafed at one another,” William said, “so much the more did the unhappy people lament; for whenever kings rage, the innocent people suffer for it.”
So it was that year, with war soon joined by famine, and pestilence that, quote, “followed on its track, as though the air had been poisoned by the dead bodies of the poor.”
A grim image, if ever there was one, and I won’t leave you with it. I’ll share one more story here from William’s chronicle, that of a man named Ketell.
Ketell, by William’s characterization, was a rustic, a man who “by virtue of his innocence and purity, [had] obtained a singular favour from the Lord,” a man of whom the chronicler said that there were many remarkable stories told, and told to him by “men of veracity.”
He had been only quite young when it first started, when he had been out one day, coming back from the fields and his horse, seeming to stumble a little, had thrown him. It does not seem like a particularly auspicious start, nor does what came next.
He looked over at the side of the road and saw two figures, laughing at him. Seeing them, what went through Ketell’s head was that they were demons, which sounded bad, that they were devils but that they were constrained from harming him any further, and he felt joy that they had harmed him so little.
This was the gift that he had received from God, wrote William, that from that day on Ketell was able to clearly see demons, however much they might try to conceal themselves from him, and there were, distressingly enough, plenty of demons to be seen. They were everywhere. If William’s world were alive with meaning, significance, and portents, Ketell’s was infested with devils. They would “rove about to afflict [people],” said William, “even in a slight manner,” and they would gleefully celebrate what they achieved, no matter how small. It was, one has to imagine, a distressing way to live, to be alone in perceiving evil all around.
There were some demons that were “large, robust, and crafty,” he said, and when allowed to do so could do great harm. Others he described as “small and contemptible, impotent in strength and dull in understanding,” but even those could be highly mischievous and took great pleasure in whatever hurt they could manage.
There were some that he spotted by the side of the road, like those first two he’d seen, throwing obstacles into the path of people or their steeds, delighting in their every trip or fall, and doubly so if a rider would blame their steed and be made to lash out at it in anger.
There were some he saw in a public house, in appearance like apes. They sat on the shoulders of the drinkers, laughing maliciously and spitting down into their cups. When the name of Christ was spoken, when it resounded, they would leap away, but once the people had reseated themselves and begun again to drink, the devils would return to their perches, mocking the drinkers for their stupidity.
Ketell drew intense faith from what he perceived as grace, as a heavenly gift, and he devoted himself entirely to God. He chose celibacy, avoided eating meat, was often alone in prayer, and was ever the first to arrive in church and the last to leave it. He lived a quiet life, working in the service of a clerk named Adam and telling none of his gift save for Adam and the priest, or else, William said, “any other discreet person making strict inquiry.” I suppose he would have had to tell someone if the stories were meant to have circulated.
There was one day, around sunset, when Ketell saw a group of ten devils gather in his village. They spoke for a time to one another, as if conferring, “secretly deliberating on their plans,” before their leader, the largest of them, sent them out in pairs, all among the houses. Two of them made for Ketell’s own house, but he stood by the door and denied them, saying “In the name of Christ, I forbid your entrance into this house, and also your abode in this village—call back your companions, and begone immediately." Reluctant to go, but unable to resist, they left, grumbling at being troubled in their work by this man.
On another occasion he saw a group of devils passing by with some sort of covered carriage and heard cries from within it. Cutting across the devils’ laughter, for he was used to speaking to them by this point, he demanded to know what was happening.
"We are conducting to the place of punishment the sinful souls deceived and ensnared by us,” the demons answered, “and they are bewailing, while we are laughing at them. We are also anxious that you should be delivered to us,” they told Ketell, “that we may rejoice with greater exultation over you too; because you are our enemy."
"Begone, [you] most malignant,” he retorted, “and let your laughter be turned into sorrow," but he needed now to be ever watchful, and he wouldn’t always be.
Returning home one night, exhausted from his, quote, “rustic labour,” he did not remember to “fortify himself with a holy symbol.” He left himself undefended, and while he slept, two devils went about their work.
The two of them were there when he woke. “Fierce and terrible beyond measure, [they] stood before him, and laying hold of him when roused up, [they spoke] … Ketell,” they said, addressing him by name, “you have fallen into our hands; you shall experience the resentment of those whom you feared not to attack, and whose deceptions you have so often betrayed."
It was a disturbing way to come to consciousness, and Ketell scrambled to recover himself, to take protection in the name of Christ or the sign of the cross, but he could not, for he had been restrained. "Labour not in vain, Ketell," the demons told him, for "we have bound your hand and tongue, nor can anything avail you against us."
All appeared bleak for Ketell, very bleak, but while the demons gloated over him and abused him with their threats, a quote, “dazzling youth suddenly entered, with a battle-axe in his hand, and took his station between them.” The boy touched his finger to the weapon, producing an enormous noise that caused the demons to leap back, startled, then to turn and flee.
“Your negligence … has nearly brought you into danger, Ketell,” said the boy, who William took to be an angel. “Be careful that hereafter your insidious enemies do not find you off your guard."
By William’s telling, they never would again.
By his telling, Ketell, “endowed from on high with such a singular gift, in perceiving the acts and fallacies of wicked spirits, having passed his life with great innocence and purity, fell asleep in the Lord, and was buried at Farneham.”
That is where we’ll leave his story and the stories of William of Newburgh, though it’s likely not the last mention the chronicler will receive on this podcast. I hope you’ve enjoyed this somewhat Halloween-y listening, this break from the main Fernao Mendes Pinto storyline. We’ll get back to that story next time, and I’ll talk to you then.