Who knows, really.
This morning, I read an interesting story from a few centuries ago. The time was 1726, and the place was London. That is when a poor, illiterate, woman named Mary Toft put on some serious hoodwinking. To hoodwink: To deceive or trick. Hoodwinking dates back to 1562, in which both the hood, and the wink are expressions used to “cover the eyes.” Hence, the deception and the proclamation.
Anyway. Back to Mary Toft, the Hoodwinker. The poor, poor peasant. She had fooled the city’s finest doctors, scientists, and even the King of that time. She gave them reason to believe that she could give birth to rabbits. And lots of them.
Such a nifty skill for a peasant of that time, I’ll tell you. That’s what the dignitaries thought too. And Toft delivered on that promise. On 17 different occasions, she put out rabbits. The whole entire spectacle became quite the fascination for all of England, for several months. At least until she was inevitably exposed. No puns intended, anywhere here.
The logistics of this are gross. She worked in the fields, and was pregnant with a real child. Sadly, she miscarried. Then, a month later, she began giving “birth” to rabbits, all of them dead at the time of delivery. They were usually baby bunnies, with the “eldest” of the rabbits being about 3 months old. Her method of trickery involved an accomplice who would place the rabbit, or parts of the rabbit, in her vagina, where she would hold it, sometimes for days or even weeks. Then, on demand, the bunny-births would ensue. Toft’s rabbits were often delivered with their sharp nails intact. It is truly amazing that she didn’t die of some horrendous bacterial infection.
At any rate, through all of the this, the King (who was George I at the time) wanted answers to this supernatural occurrence, so he sent doctors to examine the births. They were more than suspicious. The ruse continued until they threatened to perform surgery on her to examine and study her reproductive organs. That’s when she gave up the ghost. It seems that she was merely playing a “lead role” in all of this, an actress under instruction, by people who had power over her, like her husband, her mother-in-law, and (no kidding), an organ grinder. It seemed to be some sort of attempt to escape from their impoverished obscurity.
However, Mary Toft was the only one who received punishment. She was sentenced to four months in a horrid, English jail cell, from the gloomy, cruel, and foul 1700s. People paraded by the jail and scoffed at her. When she was released, she was able to fall back into her dull and unknown life as a peasant. She died many years later, at the age of 60. Her tombstone read, “Mary Toft, Widow, the Impostress Rabbitt.”
Life can be extremely hard on some people. Such is the case with Mary Toft, I believe. It sounds as though the people around her came up with a plan that would hoist them out of poverty, somehow. She may have been a willing player. Who knows. Either way, not only is this an outrageous story, it is a sad one, too.
These days, people face those same challenges of poverty, homelessness, hunger. And sometimes they go to extraordinary measures to escape. Many times, it involves a criminal activity, sadly. Just not birthing rabbits.
I don’t know what the answers might be, to ultimately solve these problems, but I am certain that our leaders should not turn their backs on this segment of our communities. I am certain it involves caring, understanding, and most of all, consideration, instead of fooling the people with hoodwinking of their own.
A woman giving birth to rabbits. People will go to extreme measures in this world. Some of them, simply to live.
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“Lies require commitment.”
― Veronica Roth, Divergent
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“Oh, what a tangled web we weave…when first we practice to deceive.”
― Walter Scott, Marmion
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“You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”
― Anne Lamott
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