Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full
Speaker 1: of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. The idea of a human animal hybrid is
Speaker 1: nothing new. Anyone who has any familiarity with mythology the
Speaker 1: world over will have heard of minotaurs, centaurs, fauns, satyrs,
Speaker 1: and all kinds of fun combinations that stimulate the imagination.
Speaker 1: But most people by now at least know to categorize
Speaker 1: these creatures in the fiction category of their mental library,
Speaker 1: not in the nonfiction section. But there are apparently some
Speaker 1: exceptions to that rule. There's at least one particular human
Speaker 1: animal hybrid that is so well documented that no one
Speaker 1: knows heads or tails what to make of it, other
Speaker 1: than to accept it. It started in the Netherlands. In
Speaker 1: one According to the legend, a Dutch heiress by the
Speaker 1: surname of Jacobs encountered a mother and her perfectly normal
Speaker 1: children begging on the streets, having nothing but bitterness in
Speaker 1: her own cold heart. The heiress told the woman to
Speaker 1: be gone and take her pig children with her. The
Speaker 1: beggar woman, on hearing this, said that if her children
Speaker 1: were pigs, then made the heiress's children be pigs as well.
Speaker 1: In the story books, we would call this the inciting incident,
Speaker 1: the start of the action. It's a classic hex only
Speaker 1: partially hidden, and surely you can bet what happened next.
Speaker 1: True to the curse, Jacob went on to deliver just
Speaker 1: a few short weeks later, and you guessed it. This
Speaker 1: child had the body of a human and the head
Speaker 1: of a pig. She was believed to speak in grunts
Speaker 1: and eat from a trough. Thus the first sighting of
Speaker 1: the pig faced woman, but not the last. The British
Speaker 1: weren't too far behind. They began to spread the story
Speaker 1: of a Dutch woman by the name of tannekin Skinker,
Speaker 1: who was also a pig faced woman, whose mother had
Speaker 1: put her in the exact saint predicament as Jacobs, cruel
Speaker 1: to a beggar woman and cursed to have piggish children.
Speaker 1: Numerous onlookers heard the curse and drew the parallels between
Speaker 1: the two and assumed that this was all the same
Speaker 1: family skinkers. Story grew from there beyond what Jacobs did.
Speaker 1: Her parents, desperate to continue the family line, offered a
Speaker 1: comfy dowry of forty pounds, but there were no suitors.
Speaker 1: She did, after all, have the head of a pig. Ironically,
Speaker 1: not even a pig farmer would marry her, and her
Speaker 1: family solicited. Quite a few varieties of the story recount
Speaker 1: that this unusual woman resided in London's hole Born district.
Speaker 1: She was recorded as being tall and I quote well proportioned,
Speaker 1: while keeping her less than ordinary face hidden behind a
Speaker 1: hood and a black velvety mask, and the records retain
Speaker 1: their consistency as this woman supposedly talked in grunts like
Speaker 1: the others. This story spread so far and so wide
Speaker 1: that by the seventeen thirties it became accepted as fact.
Speaker 1: Everyday folks from town to city to countryside recounted stories
Speaker 1: of the deformed woman, of varying names, but of the
Speaker 1: exact same pig face. And it should be mentioned that
Speaker 1: this pig faced woman is not to be confused with
Speaker 1: one Griselda Stevens, who had an actual physical deformity that
Speaker 1: left her face in a state resembling that of a hog. No,
Speaker 1: this was actually explainable, and believe it or not, her
Speaker 1: own problems of being misconstrued as a pig faced woman
Speaker 1: were thanks in part to the well circulated stories of
Speaker 1: her Dutch predecessors. The actual hybrid of cursed origins, if
Speaker 1: you will, through Griselda, though the legend continued on into
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century through the noble pig woman of Manchester Square.
Speaker 1: Of course, it was only hearsay the word of a
Speaker 1: passer by seeing a snout or hearing an oink. Nothing
Speaker 1: concrete yet one more rumor, no doubt, perpetuated by the
Speaker 1: original tale. Yeah, this rumor swept across England in eighteen
Speaker 1: fourteen and eighteen fifteen, with newspapers writing her existence as fact,
Speaker 1: not the fiction that she undoubtedly had to be. The newspaper,
Speaker 1: like most media outlets, was less than kind, writing that
Speaker 1: she would have to be wooed by grunts if anyone
Speaker 1: wished to take her hand in marriage. I can't help
Speaker 1: but hope that whoever wrote the article was the next
Speaker 1: to be hext. There is a moral to the story, though,
Speaker 1: when you see someone less fortunate than you, try not
Speaker 1: to be so cruel, Otherwise you run the risk of
Speaker 1: your kids being well pigheaded. World War two was a
Speaker 1: long and deadly conflict. Sixteen million US troops fought alongside
Speaker 1: millions more from across the globe, with over four hundred
Speaker 1: thousand Americans dying for their country. Those who were stationed overseas,
Speaker 1: far from their families and friends, longed for the comforts
Speaker 1: of home, the warmth of their own beds, hugs from
Speaker 1: children left behind, and even something as simple as seeing
Speaker 1: a movie in a big theater, which is why the
Speaker 1: United Service Organization was formed otherwise known as the USO.
Speaker 1: Between nineteen forty one and ninety seven. Popular celebrities of
Speaker 1: the time, people like Bob Hope, Judy Garland, and Humphrey
Speaker 1: Bogart put on shows for the troops to bring a
Speaker 1: little bit of home to the front lines. But the
Speaker 1: U s O wasn't the only game in town when
Speaker 1: it came to entertaining the Allies. England had its own
Speaker 1: organization called e n s A. The Entertainment's National Service
Speaker 1: Association NSA brought the likes of Laurence Olivier and Peter
Speaker 1: Sellers to the British Armed Forces. The same way that
Speaker 1: the USO brought Being Crosby to the Yanks, and among
Speaker 1: Ensa's top performers was a man named George Formby. Now
Speaker 1: Formby was born in Lancashire, England, in nineteen o four
Speaker 1: to a father who was no stranger to entertaining. He
Speaker 1: was widely known in music halls as a singer and
Speaker 1: a comedian, but didn't want his son to take up
Speaker 1: the family business. Sadly, George Sr. Died in nine one
Speaker 1: of a bronchial infection, leaving a void in his son's
Speaker 1: life as well as a void on the stage. Despite
Speaker 1: never having seen his father perform with his own eyes,
Speaker 1: George Jr. Was inspired to take up the act himself
Speaker 1: after an impostor started performing under the name the new
Speaker 1: George Formby, and so George Jr. Learned how to imitate
Speaker 1: his father from listening to his records while his mother
Speaker 1: taught him all the original jokes. George also added some
Speaker 1: of his own material, like playing the ukulele, which helped
Speaker 1: the staff pulished him is more than just a carbon
Speaker 1: copy of his late father. With help from his wife
Speaker 1: and fellow performer Barrel Ingham, Formby worked his way up
Speaker 1: to packed audiences, record deals, and even film roles. He
Speaker 1: signed a seven year contract with English film studio Associated
Speaker 1: Talking Pictures, run by a producer named Basil Dean. Dean
Speaker 1: had passed on form By early on, but eventually saw
Speaker 1: something in him, mainly that audiences seemed to enjoy him,
Speaker 1: so it wasn't a surprise that when Dean left a
Speaker 1: TP to head up ENSA, he brought Formby along for
Speaker 1: the ride. George was paid ten pounds a week and
Speaker 1: flew out to France in March of nineteen forty to
Speaker 1: perform for the British Army's Expeditionary Force. He took his
Speaker 1: duties to the troops seriously, to both at home and abroad.
Speaker 1: When he wasn't singing and dancing for the soldiers in Europe,
Speaker 1: he was touring factories and concert halls back home to
Speaker 1: raise money on their behalf. He also continued to make
Speaker 1: movies and took a six film deal with Columbia Pictures
Speaker 1: in America. But he was never afraid to do anything
Speaker 1: for a laugh, even in the middle of a war zone.
Speaker 1: He would sit on top of a Sherman tank surrounded
Speaker 1: by soldiers as he sang them a funny tune. He'd
Speaker 1: also stand in fields riddled with bombed out craters as
Speaker 1: he strummed his ukulele. In fact, after the Allies landed
Speaker 1: at Normandy, Formby traveled there to entertain them. On one occasion,
Speaker 1: he was unable to give the men a proper concert
Speaker 1: as the Germans were too close for it to be
Speaker 1: done safely. Instead, he crawled into the trenches with them
Speaker 1: and told them jokes to keep their spirits up. And
Speaker 1: then he set out to see the sixth Airborne Division,
Speaker 1: who had been holding their position near several key bridges
Speaker 1: for fifty six days. Formby put on nine shows for
Speaker 1: them in a single day, and he did it standing
Speaker 1: in front of a sandbag wall as the troops hid
Speaker 1: in the safety of their foxholes. It didn't matter how
Speaker 1: dangerous it was. Formby's duty was to keep morale high
Speaker 1: and provide some much needed relief to the war We
Speaker 1: are soldiers, and he continued to make movies and work
Speaker 1: on behalf of ENSA until the end of the war.
Speaker 1: George Formby died in nineteen sixty one, having performed in
Speaker 1: front of no fewer than three million servicemen during the war.
Speaker 1: He never killed anyone. Nor did he storm the beaches
Speaker 1: at Normandy, but he was a hero. Nonetheless, James Brown
Speaker 1: is often credited as the hardest working man in show business,
Speaker 1: but George Formby easily gave him a run for his money,
Speaker 1: and he literally did it from the trenches of a
Speaker 1: war zone. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of
Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky
Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
Speaker 1: and television show, and you can learn all about it
Speaker 1: over at the World of Lore dot com. And until
Speaker 1: next time, stay curious. Yeah h