According to legend, the city of Rome was founded by Romulus and Remus, two twin boys who were born to a princess and abandoned in the wilderness as infants. The pair would have died if not for the kindness of a she-wolf and a woodpecker, which suckled and fed the boys until a shepherd adopted them. The story of Romulus and Remus’s youth is most likely a myth, but history abounds with tales of kids who spent their early years in confinement or alone in the forest, often emerging with little knowledge of language or social cues. From a wild boy kept as a pet in King George’s court to an Indian who was supposedly raised by wolves, learn the puzzling and often tragic stories of six famous feral children. John of Liège
Kenelm Digby, who reported John's story
One of the earliest English-language accounts of a feral child concerns “John of Liège,” a boy who supposedly spent most of his youth in isolation in the Belgian wilderness. According to a 1644 account by Sir Kenelm Digby, John first fled to the woods at the age of 5 to escape enemy soldiers during a religious war. But while his family and the rest of his village returned to their homes after the danger had passed, young John was too terrified to come out of hiding. He struck off alone into the depths of the forest, where he survived for 16 years on roots and wild berries. John finally returned to society at age 21, when he was caught trying to steal food from a local farm. By then, he was reportedly “naked and all overgrown with hair,” and had “quite forgotten the use of all language.” Most astonishing of all, his years in the bush had led him to develop a dog-like sense of smell, allowing him to sniff out food from great distances. According to Digby, John eventually began talking again, but his heightened senses dulled once he was back in civilization.
Peter the Wild Boy
In the summer of 1725, a naked and mute adolescent boy was found living alone in the woods of northern Germany. The child was brought before the British King George I, who took a liking to him and had him shipped to his court. Christened “Peter,” the boy soon became the toast of London, and he was regularly trotted out as a party favor to entertain royal guests. Nobles were fascinated by the “Wild Boy’s” habit of scurrying about on all fours, and they laughed at his disregard for table manners and his penchant for picking pockets and trying to kiss ladies of the court. Attempts to civilize Peter failed—he never learned to speak and preferred to sleep on the floor—so he was eventually sent to the countryside, where he lived until his death in 1785. By then, Peter had inspired comment and speculation from the likes of Daniel Defoe and Jonathan Swift, but the full story of how he came to live in the woods has never been revealed. Some researchers have since argued that he may have first been abandoned because he suffered from Pitt-Hopkins syndrome, a rare neurological disorder characterized by learning disabilities and an inability to develop speech .
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