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16 but the notion of ill-luck in connection with it is widespread. I have heard of mothers in the South of England who absolutely forbade their daughters to wear anything of this colour, and who avoided it even in the furniture of their homes.’ The real reason is that green being the colour of the elves and pixies, if worn gives these imps a power over those who have assumed their colour; and renders the bride in ‘gown of green’ liable to be carried off to one of their underground abodes.

There is a very curious story told by William of Newburgh, who was born in the reign of King Stephen and wrote his Chronicle down to 1198; it is also found in Radulf of Coggeshall, who wrote his English History in 1223.

In Suffolk, at Woolpit (wolf-pits originally), near Stowmarket, a boy and his sister were found by the inhabitants of that place near the mouth of a pit. They were formed like other children, but the whole of their skin was of a green colour. No one could understand their speech. When they were brought as curiosities to the house of Sir Richard de Calne, at Wikes, they wept bitterly. Bread and other victuals were set before them, but they would not touch them. At length, when