History has a long culture of hoaxes, and perhaps one of the most bizarre is the monstrous births of Mary Toft.

Mary Toft with one of her 'children'

In 1726, in Goldiming near Surrey Mary Toft went into labour. She was 25 and illiterate, working as a servant and married to a clothier and has suffered a miscarriage a month earlier. nevertheless she still seemed to be pregnant and, as she struggled through the labour, she apparently gave birth to something resembling a liverless cat.Apparently confused, her family asked the local obstetrician John Howard to attend Mary and it became clear that she had given birth to yet more animal parts. Things came to a remarkable head when, in one day, she claimed to have given birth to nine baby rabbits.

Howard was stunned and sent out word to England's greatest doctors and scientists and even to the King to ask for assistance in investigating the seemingly miraculous case. Intrigued, the king sent out some of his best men and the infamous hoax of Mary Toft's rabbits began in earnest.


Why on Earth did people believe it?

Monstrous births and miracles had been a culture in of itself since time immemorial. Monstrous births could be items of horror or entertainment which could produce a profit but also act as portents from God. Science - proper empirical science - was still in its infancy and, in Mary's case, the idea that rabbits (and dead animal parts) could be generated in the womb was not one that was entirely fanciful. It was believed, for example, that the emotions and imaginings of the mother could be transferred to the foetus and this had in the past been used to explain monstrous births or in cases where a child developed a unexpected genetic trait, such as babies with darker skin when infidelity was ruled out of the equation. As in the case of the 'mooncalf', it was even thought that the moon itself could affect the development of the foetus. 

Mary's story for the births, which took place after a miscarriage a month earlier, was that she had been working in the fields and was startled by a rabbit. When she and a friend tried and fail to catch it and another rabbit she returned home and, when she went to bed, dreamt that she was sat with those two illusive rabbits in her lap. When she woke she fell ill and, for some months, had a very strong desire to eat rabbits, which she could not afford. For the science of the time, it was entirely possible that such a strong maternal impression could influence the development of the foetus, and Mary made sure to physically 'give birth' to more dead rabbits in the presence of scientists to secure her story. So it was, on the whole, taken seriously.

When Mary handed over the dead rabbits as evidence it was here that science started to

make some in-roads to exposing the hoax. King George himself sent the German surgeon Cyriacus Ahlers and Mr.Brand to investigate, and on investigation of the rabbits, Ahlers found that dung pellets still inside the rabbits contained corn, hay and straw. Clearly these had not been created inside the womb. The eminent Midwife Sir Richard Manningham and Sir James Douglas were also called to attend her 'births' and observe them in controlled settings, and also had serious doubts. The reputations of all of the doctors involved were on the line for even entertaining the idea of this being true, but opinions were divided.

The whole situation came to a head when finally Toft's accomplice was caught trying to sneak a rabbit into her room. The doctors waited to see if Mary would incriminate herself and sure enough she went into a dramatic labour that produced nothing. Mary was finally taken into custody and, being threatened with painful medical experimentation, finally admitted to the hoax, explaining that she had inserted dead rabbits into her own birth canal and allowed them to be removed as if she was giving birth. The hoax was exposed, Mary's fame only increased and, despite spending a small amount of time in custody Mary was largely pardoned and was released to avoid further attention and embarrassment. For a long time afterwards the medical profession as a whole was mocked for its gullibility.




Sources
-The curious case of Mary Toft (University of Glasgow Special Collections)
-Mary Toft and her extraordinary delivery of rabbits (The Public Domain Review)
-Notes of Karen Harvey's presentation of 'Rabbits, Whigs and Hunters: Rethinking Mary's toft's Monstrous Births 1726' (10 Dec 2014)
-Mary Toft Image

I never thought I was much of a non-fiction person, but nowadays I love my own little library.


It really started when I finished university for good and I found that I was left with a bunch of course books that I couldn't bear to throw away. Some of them were pretty dry, but they were all fascinating and could pull me back into how interesting it was to learn about a whole myriad of different historical eras and topics. After uni I branched out further, nudging into whatever interested me, so nowadays I have a growing group of psychology, philosophy and weird science books joining the shelves. At the end of the day, you should never stop learning and they certainly look impressive all stacked together.


On Monsters and Marvels was a book that I picked up when writing my Master dissertation on how monsters were treated in Early Modern England and I needed access to decent primary sources. I still love it for its bright illustrations and quirky attempt to understand just what monsters really were.


The author, Ambrose Pare, was a contemporary at the time.


He was born about 1510 and his work is considered to be one of the most sustained attempts in the sixteenth century to ‘naturalize’ monsters. It was vitally important because it represents the transition that was happening in europe where monstrous births and other marvels were gradually moving into being regarded as a function of Nature rather than just God’s magical attempts to frighten a sinning public. Collecting together many many different examples of deformed births and ‘monsters’, Pare chronicles them and comments on them, categorising them into causes and anecdotes such as those caused by the female imagination during conception, ‘excess of seed’ and the like. Furthermore in this book it drifts into other examples of his works, such as descriptions of exotic animals (now recognisable as toucans, giraffes, manatees and elephants) and the elusive search for the unicorn.

What is truly interesting and charming to me is that the entire book is just swimming in woodcut illustrations of each monster, which is especially endearing with regards to the exotic animals, and morbidly fascinating when it examples the deformed births.
Pare, as a writer (especially an Early Modern writer) is incredibly approachable and easy to read, keeping a level headed, interested yet mostly neutral approach to his subject matter, and really allows you access into the early modern world view. The translator, Janis L Pallister, also does a fantastic job of bringing Pare’s text to a modern audience with his detailed and engaging introduction and his helpful notes throughout.

 

The book is quite small and the paperback, while it looks a little cheap, is flexible and nicely but together for slipping into your bag. The printing/page quality is crisp and clear too.
I recommend this for anyone interested in history, especially the history of science, medicine or the weird and wonderful. It’s certainly a favourite in my collection of history books.

If you want to, you can read a large chunk of it on Google books.

On the 11th of October 1568, the men of Ipswich were in battle with monsters.


With a great thrashing of waves, fishermen's boats were violently assaulted as they attempted to restrain a vast writhing beast that has no business being in local waters. They gripped on for dear life as the huge creature 'swam awaye with the boat & all the men that were on it, towards the sea at a marvaylous swift pace'. The men were only saved by the multitude of other small vessels that had collected to see the spectacle.

The monster was not alone. In total Timothy Granger - an eyewitness along with other sailors and shipmen in Ipswich- counted sixteen more monstrous fish, both males and females, who seem to have swam into trouble on a low tide. Ipswich wharf was soon bustling with onlookers who 'came together to help and see the taking of them' and they were amazed by what they saw. 

The fish were strange creatures: they were 'white beneath the eyes...else black' with white bellies and with huge jaws. The tail of each 'marvelous fishe' was so strong and large that when ten men stood upon it it was said to have overthrown them all. Strangest of all, Granger commented, 'upon thyr heds were holes, as big that a man might put in both his fistes at once'. From these holes Granger exclaimed that they spurted out so much water that, in their attempt to drag the beast back to Ipswich Wharf, they almost drowned two boatsmen.

The attempt to capture all seventeen animals was arduous and, as per the norm at the time, cruel. After many failed attempts where the boats of the hunters were dragged out to sea, or where cable ropes snapped, the onlookers and sailors managed to wrap cable rope around each fish's tail and drag them to the wharf, where they were each tethered to a tree. With much effort, they managed to heave each animal up, despite the occasional broken 'wyndlace', and granger commented on their sheer 'marvaylous greatness, strength and wayght'. Seeing the fish as a valuable resource, the townspeople instantly went about attempting to slay the creatures for their meat. To their surprise, despite being stricken with axes and other weapons, some of the creatures lay on the wharf for two days and a night before they died. It was said that 'the ryver wherein they weare taken was coloured red', and that three butchers worked a whole day carving up just one fish.

As the butchers worked, Granger marvelled at the anatomy of the beast. The fish was said to be a man's height in thickness 'from the top of the backe to the bones, and his bones hard as stones'. Despite the challenge of the butchery, the meat of the beast was carved up and distributed to the people at the town, 'that did eate of it, and it was verye good meate'.

Credit: Robert L. Pitman, NOAA Fisheries, USA

Nowadays it's perhaps easy for us to identify these whales as killer whales, though at the time they were completely strange and bizarre creatures, unknown by the common person. Certainly Timothy Granger thought it strange enough to justify putting it to print and it, like other sensational texts at the time, was picked up, read and displayed with enthusiasm as proof of the wonders of God's ways. Even now, the sudden arrival of seventeen Orcas on Ipswich's shores wouldn't look out of place in any tabloid paper.


Sources


-Granger,Timothy, A Most True and Marveilous Straunge Wonder, the lyke hath seldom ben seene, of XVII Monstrous Fishes, taken in Suffolke, at Downham brydgem within a myle of Ipswiche The .XI.daye of October. In the yeare of our Lordge God. M.D.LX.VIII. (London, 1568).