Pig-faced women
s featuring pig-faced women originated roughly simultaneously in the Netherlands, England and France in the late 1630s. The stories tell of a wealthy woman whose body is of normal human appearance, but whose face is that of a pig.
In the earliest forms of the story, the woman's pig-like appearance is the result of witchcraft. Following her wedding day, the pig-faced woman's new husband is granted the choice of having her appear beautiful to him but pig-like to others, or pig-like to him and beautiful to others. When her husband tells her that the choice is hers, the enchantment is broken and her pig-like appearance vanishes. These stories became particularly popular in England, and later in Ireland.
The magical elements gradually vanished from the story, and the existence of pig-faced women began to be treated as fact. The story became particularly widespread in Dublin in the early 19th century, where it became widely believed that reclusive 18th-century philanthropist Griselda Steevens had kept herself hidden from view because she had the face of a pig. In late 1814 and early 1815, rumour swept London that a pig-faced woman was living in Marylebone. Her existence was widely reported as fact, and numerous alleged portraits of her were published. With belief in pig-faced women commonplace, showmen exhibited living "pig-faced women" at fairs. These may have not been genuine women, but shaven bears dressed in women's clothing.
Belief in pig-faced women declined, and the last significant work to treat their existence as genuine was published in 1924. Today, the legend is almost forgotten.
Standard elements
While stories of pig-faced women vary in detail, they have the same basic form. A pregnant noblewoman is approached by a beggar and her children, whom she dismisses, making some comparison of the beggar's children to pigs as she does so. The beggar curses the pregnant noblewoman, and come the birth of her child it is a girl, healthy and perfectly formed in every respect other than having the face of a pig.The child grows up healthy, but with some of the behaviours of a pig. She eats from a silver trough, and speaks only in grunts or with a grunting sound to her speech. The only child of her parents, she stands to inherit a large fortune, but her parents are concerned about what would become of her after their death. They either make arrangements to find a man willing to marry her, or to use their fortune to endow a hospital on condition that the hospital take care of her for the remainder of her life.
Although originating roughly simultaneously in Holland, England, and France, it was only in England, and later in Ireland, that the legend became well known and widely believed. In 1861 Charles Dickens remarked on the longevity of the belief in pig-faced women in England, commenting that "In every age, I suppose, there has been a pig-faced lady."
Origins
While earlier stories of humans with the appearance of animals are common, prior to the 17th century there are no recorded European stories of humans with the faces of pigs. The earliest versions of the story of the pig-faced woman appear to have originated roughly simultaneously in England, Holland and France, and to have become prevalent in England in late 1639. A 1904 paper in Volkskunde magazine by Dutch historian and antiquarian Gerrit Jacob Boekenoogen traces the earliest forms of the legend as appearing in 1638 or 1639.The earliest surviving version of the legend is a Dutch print about an Amsterdam woman named Jacamijntjen Jacobs. In 1621 Jacobs, while pregnant, was approached one day by a female beggar accompanied by three children, who pleaded that her children were starving. Jacobs told the beggar, "Take away your filthy pigs, I will not give you anything." The woman replied "Are these my children pigs? May God then give you such pigs as I have here!" Jacobs' daughter was born with the head and face of a pig, and, at the time of publication in 1638–39, the daughter supposedly ate from a trough and spoke in a grunting voice.
Bondeson speculates that the pig-faced woman myth originated as a fusion of two earlier stories. The mediaeval Dutch legend of Margaret of Henneberg tells of a wealthy noblewoman who turned away a beggar with twins, and was herself punished by giving birth to 365 children. In a similar French folk tale, the noblewoman in question described the beggar's children as "piglets", and gave birth to a litter of nine piglets.
The other significant theory about the origin of the legend, proposed by Robert Chambers in 1864, is that a genuine child was born in the early 17th century with facial deformities resembling a pig's face and a speech impediment causing her to grunt. The science of teratology was then in its infancy, and the theory of maternal impression was widely accepted. It is possible that the birth of a genuinely deformed child led to the story of the beggar as a possible explanation for her appearance, with other elements of the story being later additions or distortions by publishers. Chambers speculates that the original child may have had a similar appearance to Julia Pastrana, a woman with hypertrichosis and distorted facial features, who was widely exhibited in Europe and North America until her death in 1860, and then, embalmed, until the 1970s. However, while a 1952 stillbirth with a face resembling a pig is documented, there has never been a reliably documented case of a human with deformities of this kind surviving outside the womb, while all versions of the pig-faced woman legend describe her as a healthy adult.
Tannakin Skinker
The first recorded reference in England to the legend of the pig-faced woman is the fable of Tannakin Skinker, a 17th-century variation on the traditional loathly lady story, in particular on The Wife of Bath's Tale and The Marriage of Sir Gawain. The Skinker story is generally considered the basis for later English stories of pig-faced women. Between 4 and 11 December 1639, five ballads about Skinker were published in London, all of which are now lost. The earliest surviving record of the Tannakin Skinker story is that given in A Certaine Relation of the Hog-faced Gentlewoman called Mistris Tannakin Skinker, a 1640 chapbook.''A Certaine Relation of the Hog-faced Gentlewoman called Mistris Tannakin Skinker''
A Certaine Relation claims that Tannakin Skinker was born to Joachim and Parnel Skinker in 1618 in "Wirkham, a neuter towne betweene the Emperour and the Hollander, scituate on the river Rhyne". Joachim Skinker is described as "a man of good revenue, but of a great estate in money and cattle." During Parnel's pregnancy, an elderly woman had begged her for money. Parnel was busy and refused to pay, and the old woman had left, "muttering to her selfe the Divells pater noster, and was heard to say 'As the Mother is Hoggish, so Swinish shall be the Child shee goeth withall. At Tannakin's birth her body and limbs were correctly proportioned, but her face had a pig's snout, "not only a stain and blemish, but a deformed uglinesse, making all the rest loathsome, contemptible and odious to all that lookt upon her in her infancie." The midwife who had delivered the baby was sworn to secrecy, and the Skinkers raised her in a private room. She ate from a silver trough, "to which she stooped and ate, just like a Swine doth in his swilling tub".Tannakin's deformity was soon discovered, and many locals came to hear her pig-like speech or to watch her feed from the trough. The old woman was located, tried and convicted for witchcraft, but even at the stake refused or was unable to reverse the enchantment.
When Tannakin was between 16 and 17 years old, her father consulted Vandermast, "a famous Artist, who was both a Mathematician, and an Astrologian a man who was suspected to have been well versed in blacke and hidden Arts", as to how the curse might be undone. Vandermast concluded that as long as Tannakin remained a virgin she would retain her pig's face, but were she married, and not to "a Clowne, Bore or Pesant", she might be cured.
The Skinker family announced that any gentleman who "would take her to his bed after loyall Matrimony" would receive a dowry of £40,000. The dowry, a huge sum for the time, prompted a large number of would-be husbands. A Scottish captain arrived, having spent the greater part of a month's pay on a new suit, and was taken by Tannakin's figure and deportment. On lifting the veil to view her face, however, "hee would stay no other conference, but ran away without further answer, saying; they must pardon him, for hee could indure no Porke." An English sow-man assured the family that his familiarity with pigs meant he would accept Tannakin's appearance, but after meeting her he left the building, saying that "so long as I have known Rumford, I never saw such a Hogsnout".
Several further would-be suitors visited the Skinkers, but all were repulsed by Tannakin's face and she remained unmarried. Despairing of finding a suitable husband in Wirkham, the Skinker family moved to London, and took up residence in either Blackfriars or Covent Garden. Many who met her were taken by her elegant dress and excellent demeanour.
Eventually, the Skinkers found a man in London willing to marry Tannakin. On the day of the wedding, and despite all efforts to improve her appearance, her face was as pig-like as ever. With the wedding service concluded, the newly-wed couple retired to the bedroom. When they lay in bed together for the first time, Tannakin reached for her husband's arm, saying that she would release him from his vows provided that he would look at her in the face. He turned to look at her, and saw "a sweet young Lady of incomparable beauty and feature, the like to whom to his imagination he never had in his whole life time beheld". He reached to kiss her, but she refused, saying:
Torn between the choice of a wife who would appear beautiful to him but hideous to all his friends, or hideous to him but beautiful to all his friends, he could not reach a decision but instead said to her "into you owne hands and choyse I give the full power and soveraignty to make election of which you best please." On hearing this, Tannakin turned to him and said: