12-Pig-faced Women: Citation Needed

Myths and Legends

Jason Weiser, Carissa Weiser

Fiction, History, Arts, Books

4.8 • 25.4K Ratings

🗓️ 14 October 2015

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For over 200 years in western Europe, there was a pervasive belief among large portions of the population that the upper classes in society were hiding something - women horribly cursed with the heads of pigs . Not an insult or a metaphor, no, these were women who were thought literally to be pigs from the neck up. Crowds gathered to harass potential pig-faced women and chase their carriages, and they apparently made appearances at fairs. This is an incredibly bizarre series of events that is all but forgotten in the modern day, but bears were shaved, legacies were tarnished, and there were men from an ocean away proposing marriage to a pig-faced woman.
On the creature of the week, it's a bird who can escape from any predator, but after you hear the route it needs to take, you'll wonder if it shouldn't just let itself get caught.

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Pig-faced lady pictures
Songs:
"The Rain" by Carmelo Costanzo
"White City, Black City" by Esther Garcia
"Chaos in the Mouse Kingdom" by DDmyzik
"Quizitive" by Lee Rosevere
"Taking Dark Matter Lightly" by Alan Singley
"Something Elated" by Broke for Free
"Wandering" by Steve Combs

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This week on the Myths and Legends podcast, I'm looking at the story of the pig-faced ladies,
0:04.8	a not at all real story that led to a very real belief in the creature for nearly 200 years.
0:10.2	You'll see how you can make a lot of money getting wild animals drunk and putting them in dresses.
0:15.2	And that if you run an ad in the paper offering a lot of money for a gentleman to marry your
0:19.3	pig-faced otter, the men who show up might not be that great.
0:24.4	Then, on the creature of the week, it's a rare sought after Australian bird who,
0:29.2	when spooked, takes a very smelly escape route to jump out of existence.
0:38.5	This is the Myths and Legends podcast, episode 12, Citation Needed.
0:48.8	This is a podcast where I tell stories that have shaped cultures throughout history.
0:52.9	Some are incredibly popular stories you think you know, but with surprise and origins.
0:56.8	Others are stories you probably haven't heard, but really should.
1:01.6	This week is a little different. I'm going to tell a story from folklore,
1:04.9	but then I'm going to dive into the history and the bizarre real world response to the stories.
1:10.1	I was originally going to do this as a creature of the week, but it's so complex and weird and
1:14.4	amazing that I just had to give them their own episode. For over 200 years in Europe,
1:19.6	it was believed by large portions of the population that there were upper class women who had
1:24.3	been cursed with having the heads of pigs. Now, this isn't metaphorical, like saying someone
1:30.0	is pig-headed or ugly or something. No, people believe the upper rungs of society
1:35.2	were hiding women who literally had pig heads. They were believed to be 100% pig from the neck up
1:41.6	and human from the neck down. The newspapers reported their existence as fact. A hospital had pig-lady
1:47.6	evidence in its lobby, groups of people would chase carriages trying to catch them, and you could
1:52.0	apparently see them at fairs and festivals. This episode is all about the incredibly bizarre
	...

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