babe(s) in the woods

Extremely naive or innocent individual(s). The term comes from a popular ballad, “The Children in the Wood” (1595), about two orphaned children. Their wicked uncle wants their inheritance and hires two men to murder them. One of the men repents and kills the other, but he abandons the children in a deep forest, where they die. The tale was kept alive by numerous writers, notably through Thomas Percy’s collection, Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765).