Pig-faced women

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.

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.

[4] 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.

[1] The science of teratology (the study of birth defects and physiological abnormalities) was then in its infancy, and the theory of maternal impression (that the thoughts of a pregnant woman could influence the future appearance of her children) was widely accepted.

[1] Chambers speculates that the original child may have had a similar appearance to Julia Pastrana, a woman with hypertrichosis and distorted (although not pig-like) facial features,[1] who was widely exhibited in Europe and North America until her death in 1860, and then, embalmed, until the 1970s.

[8] 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.

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."

[15] 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.

[note 3] 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.

[14] One thinkes to him selfe, so the body bee handsome, though her countenance be never so coarse and ugly, all are alike in the night; and in the day time, put her head but in a blacke bagge, and what difference betwixt her and another woman?

Instead, the pig-faced woman remains unmarried, and the ballad ends: Both Tinkers and Tanners and Glovers also Came to her, the Money encouraged them so Nay, thousands came to her then every day, Each striving to carry this Beauty away But when they beheld this most ordinary stuff.

This Monster was a Gentlewoman of a good family and fortune, very tall and well-proportioned, of a very fine fair white skin, black hair on her head and eyebrows, but her face perfectly shaped like that of a hog or sow, except that it was not hairy; when she went abroad she covered her face with a large black velvet mask: she had a grunting voise like that of a hog, very disagreeable, but spoke very distinctly: she lived in St. Andrew's Parish in Holborn, London.

[20] James Paris du Plessis, former servant to Samuel Pepys, told in his Short History of Human Prodigious & Monstrous Births (compiled 1731–1733) of a pig-faced woman living in Holborn in central London, which was widely reprinted.

[21] An 1850 article in Chambers's Edinburgh Journal carried the recollections of "a venerable and clear-headed old lady of ninety", in which she recounted that her mother was well acquainted with a pig-faced woman, of Scottish birth but living in London, and would regularly visit her home in Sloane Street.

Robert Chambers and Irish Georgian Society founder Desmond Guinness claim that the rumour was current in her lifetime,[30][31] but Thomas Kirkpatrick, author of History of Dr Steevens' Hospital Dublin, says that There is absolutely no evidence of this story in contemporary records, nor indeed does it appear to have been connected with the good lady until the nineteenth century ...

[36] In the 1860s, a Dublin woman recollected that in her youth a large silver punchbowl, embossed with a family crest of a boar's head, was shown to visitors and was claimed to have been the Pig-faced Lady's trough.

[41] It claimed that her attendant, although paid an annual salary of 1,000 guineas (equivalent to £98,000 in 2023[27]), had been too frightened to continue working for her and had resigned, giving her story to the press.

[24] There is at present a report, in London, of a woman, with a strangely deformed face, resembling that of a pig, who is possessed of a large fortune, and we suppose wants all the comforts and conveniences incident toward her sex and station.

On the original invention of the pig-faced woman, about the year 1764, a man offered himself to make her an ivory trough to feed out of; which can only be considered as a feeble type of the silver cradle actually presented in our day.

– A single Gentleman, aged thirty-one, of a respectable family, and in whom the utmost confidence may be reposed, is desirous of explaining his mind to the friends of a person who has a misfortune in her face, but is prevented for want of an introduction.

Being perfectly aware of the principal particulars, and understanding that a final settlement would be preferred to a temporary one, presumes he would be found to answer to the full extent of their wishes.

[38] The Pig-faced Lady rushed at Elliot as he left and bit him on the back of the neck; it was claimed that he was badly injured in the attack, requiring treatment by "Hawkins, the surgeon, in St Audley Street".

[54] The Pig-faced Lady wears a transparent veil and plays "Air Swinish Multitude, set to music by Grunt Esq" on a piano.

This shows a number of men wooing the lady, who rejects them all in term with "If you think to gammon me, you'll find you've got the wrong sow by the ear – I'm meat for your masters, so go along, I'll not be plagued by any of you".

[55] The caption to the later, published print goes into more detail, claiming that: The Wonderful Mrs Atkinson is Born and Married to a Gentleman in Ireland of that name, having 20,000 fortune.

This wonderful account was told me by George Simpson who will swear to the truth of it, having heard it on board the Vesuvius Gun Boat, from some Irish Sailors who he says cannot tell lies.

[62] Uncle Silas tells the story of Maud Ruthyn, a wealthy heiress in her late teens who lives in a secluded house, whom a number of scheming men aim to marry to secure her money.

Some say she's the wife of the Wandering Jew, And broke the law for the sake of pork; And a swinish face for a token doth bear, That her shame is now, and her punishment coming.

In the place of human cheeks were huge collops of white, unwholesome fat; the nose was snoutlike, the mouth a great slit, full of hideous crooked tusks; and whilst the whole conformity of the features suggested the face of a distorted and horrible-looking pig, the animal, in contrast to the human, was made all the more poignant by the hair – unmistakably a woman's – which fell in a bright mass of rippling gold around the neck and shoulders.