The Hedgerow Children

The Hedgerow Children
fiction
edward w pritchard

During the Crusades [ circa 1212], the Children's Crusades occurred whereby a large number of innocent but stupid children from France and Germany spontaneously and piously decided to head for Jerusalem to help free the holy land from the infidels. Thousands left and most died piteously far from the holy land, as they died of hunger or exposure on route, or worse were captured and sold into slavery as they marched from Europe to Jerusalem. The numbers of children lost are staggering, and although Europe lost many more persons a hundred and some years later in the great plague, and although much of the stories about the children crusades are apocryphal, as are most back fit explanations about interesting tidbits in history, the stories of the extreme suffering of children are sad indeed and deserve to be repeated from time to time.
One group of about 700 children, headed for Jerusalem, had managed to march from Germany through Constantinople, and had made it as far as Central Turkey when they were attacked and lost over 200 children in a savage raid by slave traders. In desperation the remaining 500 children, aged 9 to 15 banned together, and took refuge in a series of hedgerows about 3 miles long near the ancient caves of Cappadocia. The area of the hedgerows was hot, dry, windy and the hedgerows were made of sinister thorns and sharp piercing bushes, and slave traders and other bad people were reluctant to enter the enclave. In fact the place became a nest for the 500 remaining children, and when the children banded together they were safe, although the slave traders refused to lose interest because the children were a valuable commodity.
In their self defense the children became protective of each other, and over time became without moral compunction, and would viciously stab and tear out the eyes of anyone who dared to try and harm one of the group.
Over, the next four or five hundred years, leaders in Constantinople, and later the Sultans in Istanbul, made efforts to break up the groups living in the hedgerow and eventually they assimilated into the general population of Turkey. Even today, however, the people in that area of Turkey are known as extremely fierce fighters in times of war or peace, and there is a story, maybe apocryphal, that they are the descendants of the hedgerow children.