The Babes in the Wood is one of England's most enduring and sorrowful folk tales, and Norfolk tradition fixes its origin firmly at Wayland Wood, an ancient stretch of woodland near Watton. The story tells of a wealthy man and his wife who died, leaving a little boy and girl in the care of the children's uncle — with the understanding that should the children die, their inheritance would pass to him. Coveting their fortune, the wicked uncle hired two ruffians to take the babes deep into the wood and murder them.
The story
In the wood the men fell out: one, his conscience stirred, killed the other rather than harm the children, but then abandoned the little pair among the trees, promising to return with food and never coming back. The children wandered, weeping and clinging together, until they lay down and died of cold and hunger. In the tenderest image of the tale, the robins of the wood took pity on them and covered their small bodies with leaves, so that they should not lie exposed. The uncle's crime, in the old ballad, brought ruin and death upon his own house in punishment.
Local belief held that Wayland Wood was haunted ever after by the cries of the lost children, and the name was popularly corrupted to 'Wailing Wood'. An ancient oak in which the babes were said to have sheltered stood until it was struck by lightning in 1879. First printed as a Norwich ballad in 1595, the tale spread far beyond Norfolk into chapbook, nursery story and pantomime — but the village signs of Watton and nearby Griston, and the dark old wood itself, keep the legend rooted in the Norfolk soil where it is said to have happened.