Mary Toft, Mother of Rabbits

Talk about a pregnancy scare. In the mid-18th century, Mary Toft made the news for giving birth to rabbits. Was it weird? Yes. Was it gross? It sure was. So, obviously, let’s get into it.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is So Bizarre, a podcast where we find the weirdest stories from history and share them with you. Hosted by Bianca Bafitis and Nicole Mercedes. Hey Bianca. Hey Nicole. Are you ready for this truly bizarre story? It really is so bizarre. I had such a fun time researching it. I'm extremely ready. Alright, so this is the story of a woman named Mary Toft who rose to fame by giving birth to multiple rabbits. Seventeen to be exact.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Wait, she gave birth?

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Bianca, she gave birth.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Okay. That's what we're doing here. Well now I'm very interested.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Alright, well, yeah, I'm not gonna summarize it more because we're just gonna dive in. I don't think you can, I think. Let's talk about my girl Mary. Mary Toft was born Mary Denier in 1703 to parents John and Jane Denier. She was born in Godalming, Surrey, which is about 40 miles southeast of London. Godoming was a market town, one of the poorest areas in the country. It's a small town that provided the goods to the surrounding areas, mostly to close castles for obvious reasons. So basically like a pop-up, but with things that people actually need.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

You're making it sound very whimsical.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

It's a f it's a forever pop-up. They basically are there to provide goods to rich people, and uh that's kind of it. So in 1720, she married Joshua Toft, and together the couple had three children Mary, Ann, and James. We're in the 18th century. We are listening to Baroque music. The steam engine is being invented, a French Revolution is happening somewhere. We are doing Y dresses. So it's like those dresses with a like upside-down basket that makes them bigger. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Big hoop. Pastels, men are wearing little scarves and velvet hats. White face all around. Oh, and there's these like face patches, you know, the like the little like black things that they have on their face, like the little beauty marks. Yeah. Yeah. Did you ever wonder what that is?

SPEAKER_01 2:24

I kinda did, but I just assumed it was like for to look cute.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Kind of. So they had like, they basically cut up tiny little like fabrics into like stars or hearts, and they had this little like think of the stick-on earrings, or actually the the zit stickers that we have now. So they were to cover blemishes, but they're cute. Anyways, wigs for everybody all around. Wigs for days, yes.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Go on.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

None of this for Mary. She poor. Oh. So every morning Mary gets up, she walks two hours to work in a hops field, and then walks two hours back. On September 27, 1726, at the age of 25, she gives birth to her first little creature. So she'd miscarried the munch before, which is a common outcome from pregnant peasants in the 18th century who were required to continue working in the fields while pregnant. Is that very different from where we are now?

SPEAKER_01 3:30

I want to say tragically not.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Do you know what maternity leave is in the US? Please. It depressed me. Ugh, it's 12 weeks after you give birth. And that actually doesn't guarantee payment unless you're in a company that is generous, which is not really a thing. And by generous I mean doing the bare minimum. So basically, if you're financially unstable and working odd jobs just to get by like I am, you can forget it. So basically on paper you get maternity leave, but it's unpaid. They just can't fire you if you have a stable job because you're pregnant. Forget about miscarriages, abortions. They're so far off the table, there is no table. Anyways, she's freelancing, obviously. And if she got the measles and survived and didn't starve to death in the process, she could maybe get her job back again.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

We love to see women in STEM. Blink.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

So she gives birth and delivers several lumps of flesh. Let's take that in. Absolutely. Yeah, lumps of flesh. She wait.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

She uh she gives birth to lumps of flesh. Yeah. That is a stillborn.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

It's lumps of flesh. Okay. So they call over the neighbor, and the neighbor watched her birth several animal parts. This neighbor then showed the pieces to her mother-in-law, Antoft, who sends the pieces to John Howard, a man midwife of 30 years' experience living in Guildford.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Why are people just sharing around her lumps? What are they gonna do with the lumps, Bianca? I don't know, but it would be I don't know. I wouldn't I They look weird. If I give birth to lumps, I don't want people just to be like, whoa, let me hold on to this first.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

Well, I guess I didn't mention that they had little animal nails, some little animal teeth. I don't like this. Yeah, it it it's gross. So she sends it to Howard. He dismisses the whole thing.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

But sorry, I don't I know I don't you can cut this, but Howard the male midway.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

I know it's good.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

I hate that.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Yeah. So initially Howard dismisses the whole thing, but despite himself, he goes to see her the next day. And Toph shows him more pieces, but he's still not buying it. Then Mary goes into labor again while he's there and gives birth to some more animal parts. This is how Howard describes what he sees. Bianca, can you read this?

SPEAKER_01 6:06

Three legs of should I what would Howard's voice be? Three legs of a cat of a tabby color and one leg of a rabbit. The guts were as a cat's, and in them were three pieces of the backbone of an eel. What's Mary's mood through all this?

SPEAKER_00 6:25

She's like, She's probably not excited. She's interested. Okay. I mean she probably does though. When he asks her how, she says it's from a cat she was fond of that slept on the bed at night. What do you feel about that?

SPEAKER_01 6:45

I feel like you're attacking me with that sentence.

SPEAKER_00 6:49

You think you're gonna get pregnant from your cat.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Well, now you now I do, yes. Yeah. Thanks.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

Hopefully you have a whole cat when you give birth and not tiny pieces.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

As better of two evils, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Alright, so Howard is going with uh basically a supernatural occurrence. A few days later, she allegedly gave birth to nine dead baby rabbits. So, a dead baby rabbit litter. By this time, Toft is a local celebrity. She moves from Godelming to a larger town of Guildford, where Howard works. He offers to deliver rabbits in the presence of anyone who doubts her story. So when I tell you this man is deeply unserious. Whenever Toft delivered a rabbit, Howard pickled it and put it in a jar on a shelf in his study. If that isn't the grossest little thing. I mean, at this point I'm kind of happy for them.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

I think you're wrong. I think he sounds like a really cool guy.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

Yeah, I think I think actually they match each other's treat. It's like it's they don't have cars, they don't have internet, it's like I'm gonna pickle things. The average life expectancy is I don't know, probably 40 at this point. Like you don't have a lot of time to they're in their 20s. He's probably he's probably almost towards death.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

Yeah, this is his golden years.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

Gotta gotta find your person. Alright, so Howard writes to England's most revered doctors and scientists, including one Nathaniel Saint Andre, who is a surgeon anatomist to the royal household. Here is what he writes Sir, since I wrote you I have taken or delivered the poor woman of three more rabbits. All three half grown, one of them a dun rabbit, the last slept twenty three hours in the uterus before it died. As soon as the eleventh rabbit was taken away, up left the twelfth rabbit, which is now leaping. If you have any curious person that is pleased to come, post, may see another leap in her uterus, and shall take it from her if he pleases, which will be a great satisfaction to the curious. If she had been the child, she has but ten days more to go. So I do not know how many rabbits may be behind. I have brought the woman to Guildford for better convenience. I am, sir, your humble servant, John Howard. Yeah, he sounds He's in it.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

I've actually been to Guildford. It's fine. It's okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

I have not. I'm sure it's beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

I'm sure it's great. I'll regale you with my Guilford tales.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

Okay, so Mr. Nathaniel goes to see for himself what the deal is, and just as he arrives, Toft conveniently goes into labor with her 15th dead rabbit. He witnesses the births of a couple more, examines the bunnies, and suggests like a normal person would, that they couldn't have originated in Toft's body. So this is so gross.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

So he immediately is calling it out and being like, no.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Yeah, for now. But still, our little Nate is too excited about this, and he convinces himself that rabbits were delivered dead, and in some cases in pieces, because of the contractions of labor. So he concludes that the rabbits were bred in her fallopian tubes.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

This whole story is making me want to puke.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

I'm sorry. Bianca, you're not being sympathetic at all towards Mary.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

What Mary's out here fucking rabbits? Is that what I'm let to believe?

SPEAKER_00 10:41

You can believe whatever you want to believe. She didn't say she fucked rabbits. Are you fucking rabbits? She didn't say she fucked rabbits. She said she had some as a friend in her bed. Okay. Crazier things have been said. So Toph changes her explanation at this point, and she said that she was startled by a rabbit while working in the field. So fun fact, Joseph Merrick, aka the elephant man, claimed that his mom was startled by an elephant while pregnant with him. But anyways, this was years later. She is clearly a pioneer. On November 29th, 1726, Mary was taken to a bathhouse in London to be observed further. There she was examined frequently by as many as ten doctors at a time.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

Okay, that sounds really freaky.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

What gender do you think the doctors were, Bianca?

SPEAKER_01 11:36

All dudes.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Yeah, all dudes, all dudes, all dudes for sure. They're like, we know how the vagina works. So while she was there, shocker. She gave birth to no more rabbits and got very sick. But during her time there, a porter was caught sneaking a rabbit into Toft's room. He explained that Mary's sister-in-law, Margaret Toft, had asked him to get the smallest rabbit he could find. Where are you at?

SPEAKER_01 12:04

I'm not in a good place.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

I feel like she isn't either. A couple of weeks later, uh two months after the first birth, Mary comes clean. The confession surprises no one. But it was unfortunately time for Nathaniel, who had just published his expose, a short narrative of an extraordinary delivery of rabbits. And I looked into this. I almost bought it, but I was just like, I'm not gonna buy it. It's basically a comic book. It's like really good drawings, actually, and like tiny little squares, like a comic book with like little explanations. It's very twe. I love it. And it like has little poetry in it. It's adorable.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

None of these are none of these people are serious.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

I know, but you gotta make art out of, you know. Make art where you make art. So Mary is sent to prison and charged for being an abominable cheat and imposter and pretending to be delivered of several monstrous births. I agree with that charge.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

She is an abominable. Abominable. Abominable cheat. She is.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

Imposter. Pretending. Booker. Monstrous births.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

I think Howard should be in there with her.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Um, so she blames the entire affair on a lot of other participants. Uh her mother-in-law, Howard, as you may have guessed. Um, she also claimed that a traveling woman told her how to insert the rabbits into her body and how such a scheme would ensure that she would quote unquote never want as long as I lived. Wanna hear a fun fact? Oh, sure. It's just a tiny little cute fun fact. In all of the quotes, they wrote rabbit R-A-B-B-E-T. And I think it's very cute.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

That is very cute.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

Because it's like rabbit. It's not it's not serious. It's just like she had rabbits. It makes it better.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

Like that you're struggling to see the glimmer of hope in the Not struggling.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

I see it, Bianca. You don't see it yet, but you'll see it. So on January 7th, 1727, John Howard and Mary Toft appear in court where Howard was fined 800, which is la la la la la 150,000 today. Fuck. What is that even? That's a lava peasant. I don't think Howard was a peasant.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

Well Howard was a grifter.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

He was a we don't know. But we do know that he returned to Surrey and continued his practice. That is what we do know. Mary was released in April because it was unclear what to charge her with. Because, like, truly, what are you charging her with?

SPEAKER_01 15:05

I thought we said it.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

Abominable, nefarious. I mean, that's what they accused her of. But then to send someone to prison, what it what is the charge? Like you were mean, you were bad, you were annoying.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Yeah, you fooled.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

You said you said some things and then a bunch of men believed you, and now bye. No, they didn't even back then, they were like, we don't have the language to tell you what you were being charged for.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

She's being charged with being gross. Because she's what she's stuffing live baby rabbits up her vagina.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

Yeah, that's her right. Didn't stick. Is it her right?

SPEAKER_01 15:48

Why is it not? I get scared if I leave in my diva cup too long. Like if I'm stuffing a live.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

Those are your personal fears, though. If someone believes you that your diva cup turned into an eel, that's on them, Bianca. Like eventually this thing went to the king essentially. The king was like straight to the top. It did. He was like, What's happening? And then he was like, Oh, I was fooled. No. I need to know more. Well, anyways, she was released in April, and the Toft family made no profit. And Mary returned home. In February 1728, she gave birth to a daughter. Noted in the parish register as her first child after she pretended rabbit breeding. That's what you want in your birth certificate.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

That's what you wanna, you know, growing up to be like, well, I was the first kid.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

My other 18 siblings were tiny little dead rabbit hearts. We don't really know a lot about Toff's story after this. I assume she had a good life, probably died when she was 45. Natural causes, I guess. We don't I don't know. But we're her. What do people die?

SPEAKER_01 17:15

Just constant.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

I think she was beyond yeast.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

The yeast infections were scared of her.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

Alright, Bianca. So what is your take on her? What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 17:27

Um honestly. Like, who among us haven't had a couple of drinks? Your work in the fields probably 47 hours a day. Sounds like this lady probably came up to her and was like, I have a pretty cool. This is like her her Bitcoin or her scam scam and her Ponzi scheme. She was like, I have an idea and I think it might work. And then Mary was a pioneer and said, fuck it. Let's try it out. Horrible idea, but still let's ex execute it. And she wasn't wrong.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

You know what? Why wouldn't the woman that told her that herself? Why didn't she do it? If it was such a good idea, why are you out here in the fields in your little cart telling other people what to do?

SPEAKER_01 18:21

She probably said it when she was like three wine bottles deep. And was like, Hey, you know, you know what I would do.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

But the crazy thing is that she didn't make money off of it. There was no point in which she was like looking to be famous about it. It's so fucking bizarre, if you will. So what do you think? Is she a con woman, a hero, a boring girl? What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 18:52

I think that she was a con woman, but I want to say that there were no victims, but there were many, many animal victims. So she she's not gonna get a pass from me, but at the same time, as long as she stops hurting rabbits, killing rabbits, then I think she learned her lesson.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

So I did more of a deep dive because there's not that much information on it. But I read this academic paper by Karen Harvey from 2015. It's called What Mary Toph Felt: Women's Voices, Pain, Power, and the Body. And then I felt a little bad about everything I thought. An explanation for why they believed her could be beliefs in the possibility of monstrous births caused by the maternal imaginations. Again, this was a time where women weren't allowed to study medicine at that time. So it was basically just like women deal with women shit, and then doctors started to monetize it and be like, oh, we can make money and we want to be in charge of women. So then they're in charge of midwifery. I feel like it's because of that she was able to dupe so many men.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

Yeah, f fair.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Whether she was put up to it by other people around her or the doctors or whatever, I think it's very telling you how much pain she would have been in? I think I wrote this down somewhere. So Nathaniel's reports were like the rabbits were often delivered with their sharp nails intact. Oh my god. Because these animals' remains were like hidden in Toff's body for several weeks, it's astonishing she didn't die of bacterial infection.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

Right. This woman was from a very poor village. She wasn't trying to gain money from it. I think it's just kind of this like traumatized woman that couldn't go back to the fields, had a really bad miscarriage, was like hurt, didn't even set out maybe to dupe men, just it was there for the taking because they had no idea what they were doing.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

I'm on board with you up until I realized that she stuffed a bunch of rabbits up her snatch and killed them.

SPEAKER_00 21:20

Silanca, what would her tagline be?

SPEAKER_01 21:26

Hey, if you're not ready to go at it like a rabbit, you better hop along.