Loremen Podcast - Loremen S5Ep62 - The Pig-faced Phantom of Chelsea

Episode Date: December 12, 2024

A strait-laced reverend meets a surprisingly seductive ghost with the face of a pig. Who will win? The pig-faced phantom of Chelsea, of course! Christmas Pig has come early. The Loremen dig into the origins of the porcine spectre, and uncover what might be one of Britain’s earliest urban legends. If you believe the tabloid press, cities were once awash with swinish visages and hoggish fizzogs. There’s Tannakin Skinker, the wonderful Mrs Atkinson and the pig-faced woman of Manchester Square. It’s all good seasonal fun. And a reminder that the past could be horrible if you looked a bit different. Or were a woman. Not like the present, eh? EH???  Seasons Scratchings! This episode was edited by Joseph Burrows - Audio Editor. LoreBoys nether say die! Support the Loremen here (and get stuff): patreon.com/loremenpod ko-fi.com/loremen Check the sweet, sweet merch here... https://www.teepublic.com/stores/loremen-podcast?ref_id=24631 @loremenpod youtube.com/loremenpodcast www.instagram.com/loremenpod www.facebook.com/loremenpod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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get a coupon for a free Big Mac or McChicken. See details at participating McDonald's restaurants. Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. With me, Alistair Beckett King. And me, James Shake Shaft. And James, it's that time of year. It is. December. It's the most porcine time of the year. When you and I tell each other folklore tales vaguely related to pigs for some reason that we won't really go into. It's Christmas Pig. I have a tale for you James of a pig-faced phantom which is as terrifying as it is weirdly sensual. It's the pig-faced phantom of Chelsea. Chelsea! James! Yeah? Is the spirit of the season upon you? Oh yeah, it is actually.

Well I'm glad. I'm glad you're in a Christmassy mood, James, because... Its Christmas pig comes slightly early. It is! Christmas pig gets earlier every year. I've got a tale for you now. Yeah. Now, let me say upfront, you know, that when I tell you a story on the lawmen podcast,

AKA lawmen, my tales always come with the ABK seal of truth stamped on them, like Nintendo games in the 1990s, about a little foil. Do you remember the little gold foil thing? Yeah. Yeah. Proper Nintendo game, not from the market. An actual one, like a year's worth of pocket money saved up. This is a real truth product.

Exactly. But on this occasion, I have some festive tales for you of cruelty and horror, I have some festive tales for you of cruelty and horror, which you should take with, and please get ready for this, a pinch of salt pork. Oh, very nice. Is that a type of meat? Because I don't genuinely don't know these things. You can salt a pork. Can you?

Okay. Good. Salted pork. Yeah, be fine. That is pretty much how you make ham. Is it? Like your bacons and whatnot. You just apply salt to a pig. You get a bit of pig, put a load of salt on it and that as...

Bam. Ham. Leave it for a while and that ironically cures it, which as I've pointed out before is that ain't no cure. From the pig's point of view, but from the butcher's point of view, preferable, more saleable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you don't want it sort of reconstituting and frolicking about in your fridge.

Jason The listener might be thinking, surely this image of a reconstituted ham pig frolicking in the fridge is the most nightmarish image this podcast is going to present. Andi Fingers crossed. Jason During this Yuletide season, but you are wrong. Andi Whoa. Jason Get ready to be terrified, horrified and bemused, James. Oh gosh. Is it going to be like that thing in The Thing? Well, it is a bit like The Thing in The Thing. It's not not like The Thing in The Thing.

Right. It's the pig-faced Phantom of Chelsea. Yeah, you sound frightened. I assume that was a laugh of fear. The PFP of C? Yes. It took me a little while to remember that Phantom begins with a P there. Well done. I think everyone was really impressed. We've edited the pause down, so it sounds like you were much quicker. Yeah, and it's now Christmasy.

Let's visit a book which is 100 years old this month. visit a book which is 100 years old this month. Oh, ghosts, helpful and harmful by Elliot O'Donnell published in December 1924. I know of this Elliot O'Donnell. Elliot O'Donnell, a prolific writer of, and this is troubling, both fictional and real ghost stories. Yeah. I've got a couple of his books. I've got his like, he's got like haunted houses of London and more haunted houses of London. And they're all written in a prose manner.

They're very prosy, as you will see. Wikipedia says he might not be a reliable source, which that's Wikipedia. Wow. Saying that. But he, he regarded himself as a serious ghost investigator. He was, you know, he put himself forward as an expert. He seems to have been absolutely convinced in the existence of ghosts. And as far as we know, he believed the stories he was telling were true.

So maybe you want to peel back the little foil stamp, the ABK seal of truth, not completely affixed in this case. Okay. With that caveat out of the way. Yes. Here comes the pig faced phantom of Chelsea. Our protagonist, who is known only by the initial H, because of course, he's a real person, James. This is a true story.

Yes. The Reverend Mr. H. So that's the surname? Yes. Right. He's a nonconformist. Oh. Like the denomination. Not just like, not just like an eccentric, not like the person on my sixth form I wore a top hat. Was that you?

Well, it wasn't not. I wore a wizard's hat. It's not important, James. I'm trying to make fun of the tall, the top hat guy. Why are you doing? What about this nerd over here in the top hat? So he's Mary Mary quite contrary. Yes, in religious terms. Religiously.

He was an upright fellow, not inclined towards vice or alcohol. And he was in the market for a house. So he was looking around a house in Chelsea, being shown around by the estate agent's boy, who was, as far as I can tell, a musical cockney from the way it's written. It's written in, you know, with dialects, like he's dropping H's as if they were all... Nice. ...freshly shelled whelks or whatever it is cockneys would have eaten at this time. So he goes up to the landing. And on the landing, suddenly and without warning, a door opens a crack towards him,

and a hand comes round and catches the door in place and stops it from opening. O'Donnell writes, It was obviously a woman's hand, and just as obviously its owner was a woman of extreme daintiness and refinement. For the fingers were white and tapering, and the nails almond-shaped and highly polished. The Reverend Mr. H was fascinated. He had never seen such beauty in a hand before and he found it quite impossible to remove his gaze from it. However, he was trying to force himself to do so when there was a whiff of the most delicate perfume and the hand withdrew whilst the door immediately afterwards closed noiselessly.

So it's like, oh, fit hand. Really sexy hand, yeah. Oh, look at them knuckles. Oh, nice perfume, love. That's probably what the estate agent's boy would have thought if he had been there, but he was downstairs. So the Reverend Mr. H assumed that it was the wife of the owner of the house. Because of the past, yes.

Yeah, yeah. And that she was just there, maybe owner of the house. Because of the past, yes. Yeah, yeah. And that she was just there, maybe a little bit shy, you know. I suppose because legally she couldn't own a house because of the past. She could not own a house. She was lucky to have fingers. As they were about to leave, he sort of said, oh, what about the lady of the house? And the estate agent's boy looked at him and said, The owner of the house is a gentleman, sir. He's what they call a widower.

Widower, but it's written widower. Widower. Widower. Widishins. I ain't got no wife. Besides, he's abroad just now and seeing as no one but yourself has had the keys today, I don't know who it could be. That's very odd.

So they went upstairs and they searched the room upstairs, completely empty. Of course, they looked around everywhere. There was nowhere the woman could be and there was no way she could have left. Well, he put it out of his mind and he took the house. Very soon, the Reverend Mr. H moved in with his wife and his children, John and Emma, their governess and Mary, the general. Yeah, that's what I thought. I think not like... Yeah, she's not in the art. No, I think it's when you were not quite rich enough to have a different maid and cook and footman and everything. You have one person like a general maid, it just does all of that.

Right. It does for the whole house. Right, right. Does it a bit slower. A little bit slower, yeah. And presumably with the whole house. Right. Right. Does it a bit slower. A little bit slower, yeah. And presumably with a marching band.

Morning, General. Well, the trouble started quickly, James. Within a week of moving in, his wife came to him and said, Mary's drunk. Mary was the general. Nonsense! The Reverend Mr. H. ejaculated, looking up from his work in astonishment. You don't seem happy there. Are we going to have to bleep that, James?

I think we're all right. It's not the last ejaculation in the story. There's about one per page. I think we're… oh my gosh. All right then. It's a thing with this, Reverend. Yeah, right. He's… okay. It's true, Mrs H said, despairingly. When I went into the kitchen just now to see her about luncheon, she burst out laughing and began talking a lot of rubbish. She simply reeked of spirits.

Well, what could the Reverend's wife do but immediately fire Mary? Oh no, she does everything. But perhaps the spirits that General Mary was drinking weren't the only spirits in the house at that time? Because in fact that wasn't the only strange encounter the reverend's wife had had that day. Earlier in the day, she had been making the bed when she heard a knock at the door behind her.

Thinking it was Mary, that was before I found her drunk, I called, come in. And the door at once opened and someone crossed the room. I heard footsteps most distinctly. They passed close behind me. Yet when I turned around to see who it was, there was no one there. And she asks most distinctly. They passed close behind me. Yet when I turned around to see who it was, there was no one there." And she asks him flatly, James. Do you think the house is haunted? Haunted? The Reverend Mr. H. ejaculated, making an attempt to appear jocular. Why, my dear. It's not an easy thing to do, James. Give him

credit. Yeah. There are no such thing as ghosts. You may rest assured. It was fancy, sheer fancy. Your nerves are overwrought. You may think so, Mrs. H answered. But wait, perhaps you will see or hear something yourself. She said with an somewhat implausible amount of narrative awareness, I think.

Yeah. It's like she knows that's the end of a scene. Did she sort of stand there afterwards as well, waiting for the lights to go out? While the credits rolled, like at the end of, yeah. A couple of days later, the Reverend was alone in the house when that scent, the perfume of the woman came over him once again. Yeah, old hot hands. Yeah, and it drove him hog wild. It came over him like a Christmas pig of sensual pleasure.

O'Donnell writes, it seemed to penetrate not merely his nostrils, but his whole being, and to arouse within him passions and cravings he had never in his life been conscious of before. He was thrilled right through, and more than intoxicated, He felt he could go on inhaling and inhaling that scent ad infinitum, which would be horrible. Yes. To just constantly breathe in forever. While he's sniffing on this perfume, he hears the front door open and close and thinks, oh, she's left. And so he charges out after the spirit into the night. And he runs about wildly for a couple of hours before collapsing exhausted into a pub, simply because it's there, James. And he has, okay, maybe a couple of drinks just to steady his nerves, James. Reverend H.

Anyway, he shambles back home. He's not had a drink before. He's a non-conformist minister. His wife's not going to be happy. She isn't. Mrs H is horrified to find her husband drunk. What can she do? Of course, she immediately packs a bag and goes to live with her mother, but she leaves behind the kids. Oh, that's not cool.

That's not a good way of doing it. That's not normal, but I think it probably was in those days, because again, women were not allowed to own children in those days, probably. I haven't checked, but probably for sexist reasons she had to leave the kids. Unfortunately, I'm sorry to inform you that those two children immediately, almost immediately start turn of the screwing. Okay, I thought you were going to say they turn to drink as well. No, not quite, but they do turn to vice.

They immediately start torturing flies and mice. So is the corrupting power of this house. Wow. They drive their governess away with their horrible behaviour. Until it all comes to a head. One night, Emma is woken by some sounds in her room. Is it Brother John? No.

She wakes and she looks up. And to her astonishment, instead of seeing John, she saw standing in the center of the room in a flood of moonlight, a tallish figure enveloped from head to foot in a long black cloak. Okay, so far, so sleep paralysis, but wait, James. The figure remained motionless for some seconds and then crossing the floor with a curious gliding movement, it advanced towards the door. Emma, the wild one, watching it in breathless expectation. Is this the original moonwalk? Okay, might be doing the moonwalk, but that is now, in context, quite creepy.

On reaching the doorway, which was parallel with the bed, the figure turned round and beckoned to Emma, and Emma, who was precocious beyond her years, noticed that it had the most extraordinarily beautiful white hands. She wakes Brother John and they follow the figure to the landing where the father first saw the woman, or rather the woman's hand. They call out for their dad, but before he can appear on the landing, the figure throws off its cloak. And what do you think it reveals, James?

Try and imagine you don't know what our Christmas theme is. And the title of the episode. Yeah, just try and... The thing that I initialized earlier. Yes, try and imagine. Oh, well, I imagine it's a lady whose face and visage is as attractive as her digits. Well, you'd be wrong, James, and a fool. You fell into my carefully laid trap.

Carefully laid trap? The body, beautifully formed and gleaming like polished ivory in the moonbeams, resembled that of a woman. But the face was the face of some very grotesque and repulsive animal. In the place of human cheeks were huge collups, friend of the podcast, of white unwholesome fat. The nose was snout-like, with the mouth a great slit full of hideous, crooked tusks. And whilst the whole conformity of the features suggested the face of a distorted and horrible

looking pig, the animal, in contrast to the human, was made all the more poignant by the hair. Unmistakably a woman's which fell in a bright mass of rippling gold around the neck and shoulders. Whoa. Exactly Miss Piggy's hair. It should just say it had Miss Piggy's hair. It's basically Miss Piggy. The children were still staring at it in speechless horror when their father opened the door of his room and as he did so the figure slowly faded away and vanished. And they left the house the next day. And as far as O'Donnell knows, the house has continued to be very haunted.

Wow. So what was this ghost? Well, O'Donnell's hypothesis is that it's a vice elemental. Right. I tried to find out what that was. It's a Yu-Gi-Oh card, as far as I can tell. Right. to find out what that was. It's a Yu-Gi-Oh card, as far as I can tell. It's something that he, a name he has given to a kind of spirit that encourages people to vice, you know, like the general to drink a corrupting spirit. Ah, a corrupting. And he has some great theories of what could have caused a vice elemental to attach itself

to this house. Oh, go on. I should say that in my opinion, it comes under the category of vice-elementals. The vice-elemental being the most harmful of all the denizens of the spirit world. Perhaps something connected with the site of the house. Either a foul crime committed there in long ages past, or a slaughterhouse that stood there, or a rank pool, or a certain type of tree attracted it thither. That's a real mix of types of things. James, can we please? No, not the end of the list.

Oh good. Or perhaps something in the actual house itself, such as the vicious and degenerate thoughts of some former occupant. Or a weird lamp. Or a piece of furniture. He did say it! He said the thing. Any one of these. Crime, slaughterhouse, pool, tree. A certain type of tree. Certain type of tree. Degenerate thoughts, furniture. Any of those could explain

the presence of the vice elemental. It's occasionally a table, but occasionally corrupts your soul. The other theory is that it could be the earthbound spirit of some peculiarly vicious and degenerate woman. Or just like some guy. Or a certain type of tree. Or it could be a tree. Could have been a certain type of tree. But James, I know what you're thinking.

Yeah. That couldn't be the ghost of a real person. There couldn't be a real person in London with the face of a pig. This is ages before the Muppet show. Well. What? Well, James. What?

What if I, what if I introduced you to the pig faced lady of Manchester square? What? In London, not Manchester. P-F-L of M square. Yeah, correct. I'm glad you didn't abbreviate square for no reason. Yes. As chronicled in the pig-Faced Lady of Manchester

Square and other medical marvels by Jan Bonderson, who wrote the really good book. A friend of the show. Yeah. Returning to the show, he wrote the really good book about the London monster. Yes. For our episode, The London Monster. Bonderson is also a regular contributor to 14 Times. Right. Yes. Jan Bonderson, if you Google him, one of the suggested are buried alive Jan Bonderson. There you go. Was he buried alive? Has he written a book about being buried alive? We don't know. He's an unpredictable guy. An electorate in Cardiff, I think. Now, he tells several stories

of pig-faced women and all of them are in the sort of area of aliens turned my son into a fish finger daily sport headlines. I think it's important to say, I don't think these are real people. These do not have the ABK seal of truth on them. I don't think they're stories about a real person who was born with visible differences to their face. I think these are pure urban legends. It's just important, with it being Christmas, that we know there isn't really a real person who's being bullied in these stories in most cases. That's good. Thanks. Thanks for pointing that out. Merry Christmas. It's 1814 and rumours begin to spread in London of a woman who always wore a

veil in her carriage. The Londoners, they're simple folk, James, they're like you and me. They see a woman with a veil in her carriage. They leap to only really one obvious conclusion. What would you conclude in that situation? She's on her way to get married? Incorrect. She has a pig's face, James. She has the face of a pig, which she must hide behind that veil. Wow. These people would have absolutely lost their self during lockdown when we all had to wear a mask. Lockdown. Yeah, exactly. Pig, pig, pig, pig, pig. Look at all these pig face people. Why is the government trying to hide all the pig

face people? Yeah. What don't they want us to know about pigs and faces? That everyone has a pig's face. Right. Okay. Of course. Realize, realize pig face. Google it. Wow. Do your own research. Oh, don't. Just, just, just have a little think for a second ago. Yep. That's wrong. Yeah, just have a little think. The rumors make it into the papers.

That made the news. They don't make the serious newspapers. They make, they make the, the daily sports. How would you describe the Daily Sport? Because it doesn't exist anymore. And Americans might think that sounds like a real newspaper, but it's more like this or The Onion, but like a slightly pornographic version of The Onion. A pornographic, reactionary version of The Onion. Apart from the front page, it was like every other page apart from the front page was page three. And again, we might need to explain page three, but I don't know if we can on a friendly podcast.

Let's ask the Reverend Mr. H to explain it. You see more than some very attractive fingers. Oh, you'll be inhaling and inhaling and inhaling. But the front pages of the Daily Sport were notoriously, they were, what's the American one? There is one, the Batboy one. National Enquirer. Yeah, it's the National Enquirer. That's it.

It's like National Enquirer, but more obviously humorous, I think. I don't think the Daily Sport thinks anybody believes it. And there's a bit of snobbery around like, oh, working class people are reading this funny newspaper, taking it seriously. I was like, no, I think everybody knows that aliens turned my son into a fish finger, or they found a double-decker London bus on the moon. Is not true. You used to be able to get books of the front pages for Christmas toilet books kind of thing.

Christmas toilet. Christmas books for the toilet. Christmas toilet, thank goodness we run out of Christmas pig. I'm glad we'll come up with a new one. Oh, let's do Christmas toilet next year. Christmas toilet legends. So the ladies maid, supposedly the ladies maid of the pig face lady of Manchester Square came forward and reported that the lady was from Ireland, told the papers,

according to Bonderson's book, that she was flawless in body and limb, but her head and face were those of a pig. She spoke only in grunts and ate her victuals from a silver trough, which you wouldn't have to do if you were a human with a pig for a face because you have hands. And what lovely hands, unless that's why her hands were so lovely because they never did a day, they never did a blooming day's work. I get it. It's not literally the same person. And also neither of them exist because clearly they're made up. But isn't she the ghost of the person?

Well possibly, but probably not. Bonn doesn't just suggest that it's sort of an echo of the same story. And it does, you know, the flawlessness of the body, the fact the body is so perfect and the face is a pig does seem to be a common… Mmm. You don't get it the other way around. Weirdly you don't. A really, really, really beautiful head on a pig's body. Well, let's just see if the internet can provide. Someone surely wants that.

Some hot hog. Well speaking, actually, speaking of the fact that there's someone interested in just about everything there, put a pin in that for one second, the lady's maid was supposedly paid a thousand guineas a year, but even that wasn't enough to keep her working for the lady, which I would do, but that's like 70k a year in today's money. So that's, it's just a very implausible story all around. I wouldn't leave that job. The idea was that she was a very wealthy woman, the pig-faced lady of Manchester Square, and she was looking for a suitor. And as soon as that got out, a guy, well, a guy wrote into the Morning Chronicle and basically proposed to her, just

managing to keep a lid on how keen he was on the idea of marrying a woman who has a pig's face. And go on. Here's the letter. Secrecy is the title. A single gentleman, aged 31, of a respectable family, and in whom the utmost confidence may be reposed, is desirous of explaining his mind to the friends of a person who has a misfortune in her face, but is prevented for want of an introduction. Being perfectly aware of the principal particulars and understanding that a final settlement would be preferred to a temporary one, presumes he will be found to answer the full extent of their wishes. His intentions are sincere, honourable, and firmly resolved."

I mean, there's a lot. He's keen. He's very keen. Now, the reason the serious newspapers didn't pick up on this story was, it was obviously not true. But also because exactly the same story had gone round London in 1764. What? That there was a pig-faced woman and she was looking for a suitor and at that time people wrote into the papers one man wrote in offering to make her an ivory trough to eat from. They're obsessed with her eating from a trough. Just yeah. In spite of her canonically having hands. Yes. Could it be her nan?

Could it be part of the family, the lineage? No, because she wasn't from a magical race of pig-faced people. It's not like Morrowind. There is always a story of how the person came to have a pig for a face, which I'll get into in a second. Because there are dozens of cases of swine-faced ladies and long-nosed lasses stretching back a couple of centuries. Is it always women? It's always women. And that's something Jan Bonderson notes, that nobody would be interested in the story if it was about a man. And there is something quite cruel and kind of sexist about the fact that there's never any sympathy shown towards the woman. And the whole purpose of the story is to laugh at the people who try

to become the suitor of the pig-faced woman. Yeah. In fact, Bonderson compares her to Miss Piggy and Miss Piggy's constant attempts to seduce her. Oh, yeah. The other pig-faced ladies have appeared in the Mercurius Democritus and Mercurius Fumigosus or Fumijosis, I don't know, which I think were probably the daily sport and Sunday sport of the 17th century.

It all goes back to the, are you remembering daily sport headlines that you've... Yeah, but I was just imagining them with like... Ruffs? The words bard or, yeah, peasant in there. Peasant turned my wife into a, I don't know what food they ate, I don't know, some food from the past. Hobgoblins turned my good wife into a persimmon. Yes, yes. Best I can come up with.

Most accounts of pig-faced women go back to the legend of the hog-faced gentlewoman and a pamphlet called A Certain Relation of the Hog-Faced Gentlewoman called Mistress T. Skinka from 1640. That's Tannakin Skinka was the name of this hog-faced gentlewoman. Which sounds like a hilarious made-up pig name, but it's just a Netherlands name from the time. So Skinka is like a Dutch German, an English version of a Dutch German surname and Tannikin is like an affectionate version of Anne or Annie. Oh, that's good to know. Tannikin Skinka. And Tannikin was from Verken in Holland, I think. And she was the daughter

of a wealthy burger. Pause for James. Thank you. To enjoy that. One day, an old witch came to the burger's wife, begging alms. Sorry, I didn't pause there. Burger's wife gave her a short shrift, and off the old witch wandered, muttering, the devil's paternoster. And was heard to say, As the mother is hoggish, so swinish shall be the child she goeth withal. Because the burger's wife was at that moment pregnant. And of course, when she gave birth, she gave birth to Tanuk and Skinka,

the hog-faced gentlewoman. They were very wealthy. And so they came to England, because the only way to lift the curse was for the woman to be married. She was now age 20, now in 1640. Right. And so you see it's the same story again. Dr. Burkenugen. Lovely. Dr. Burkenugen has investigated the history and he found the same legend attached to a wealthy Dutch woman named Jakkermintjeen Jakobs. She was rude to a beggar woman's children and she said, take away your filthy pigs. And you know, the beggar woman went, oh, you call my children pigs. Your child will have the face of a pig. Kapow. So it's the same story again and again and again. Pig face be it. Pig face be it. Exactly. There's the wonderful Mrs Atkinson. What made

her wonderful? Is it having a pig's face? It is having a pig's face. Quoting from Jan Bonderson's book, the wonderful Mrs Atkinson is born and married to a gentleman in Ireland of that name. Having 20,000 fortune, she is fed out of a silver hog trough and is called to her meals by pig, pig, pig. No way. It's cute and annoying at the same time.

No way is that true. That's a pig. That's a pig. What's going on? What's going on? Is this some sort of scam? What is going on? This one, this next bit sounds even more like a scam.

Again from Bonderson's book. Another story told that Sir William Elliot, a young baronet, was once visiting a lady of fashion in Grosvenor Square. He was ushered into the drawing room where he saw a elegantly, it says, I was going to say an elegantly, a elegantly dressed lady standing with her back turned to him. Intrigued, he walked up to her, but recoiled when she turned round sharply and revealed a hideous pig's face. The impact of that probably somewhat lessened by this being the ninth pig face so far. But Sir William hadn't heard the rest of the stories. Sir William gave a shout of horror and rushed for the door. The pig-faced lady obviously thought

him quite impolite, since she gave a furious grunt, ran after him and bit him on the back of the neck. Didn't happen. No. Did not happen. Yeah. An implausible explanation for why you've got a pig's bite on the back of your neck. And then there was finally Grisel Stevens, the pig faced lady of Dublin. Now, a little bit of a twist-a-roo here. She was a real person. Double Twist didn't have a pig's face. Just a normal woman's face. But I think she had a sensitivity to light, so she would wear a veil in public.

Right. And so people started saying that she was like the pig face lady from legend, even though she often appeared with her face showing and there was a painting of her. And she was, she seems like quite a nice person. She was a wealthy philanthropist who gave away most of her fortune to build the first public hospital in Dublin. And she just didn't have a pig's face. But they told the same story about her mother having been rude to a poor woman who cursed her. And it's just a bit sad. It's a bit of a downer to end on for Christmas really, because it seems that whenever there's like a story that seems like a bit of innocent fun about witches or pig faced women, you

know, you look into it for a morsel of Christmas merriment. And it turns out that actually the real story is incredibly sexist and ableist and weirdly biased against trees and chairs. Yeah. Yeah. They, they get chucked at. Yeah. Just really throw in every, everyone under the bus. It feels like the end of Scooby Doo sometimes.

Like, well, let's see who is behind this spurious legend. Pulling the pig mask off and and edge the patriarchy again. Oh, it's misogyny. It was sexism this time. I would have succeeded too if it hadn't been for you pesky kids. You woke kids. Merry Christmas, Christmas pig. Christmas pig one and all. Christmas toilet.

Next year. Next year, because we run out of pigs. So that's the story of the pig-faced phantom. Wow, multiple pig-faced phantomums. Molto pig. Molto. Molto poco. Molto poco. I enjoyed it in your voice more than I enjoyed it when I said it.

So that's the story of the pig-faced phantom, James. Terrifying. What a scary and weirdly sexy story it was. Sexy, but also sexist. Yeah, sexy and sexist. You can be both. Would you like to pass judgment? Absolutely.

I'm going to score it. I mean, you've been passing a little bit of judgment all the way through, but would you like to do the scores? Yeah, I'd also do the scores though. Yes, please. Go on then, what's your first category? My first category, James, is supernatural. Now try to overlook the fact that those last ones were urban legends and remember the terrifying tale of the pig-faced phantom of Chelsea. Yes, with the hot hands. The sexual hands, the sensual scent of the pig faced ghost. Or was it a ghost or was it a vice elemental?

Probably with like a, a plus three fire axe. The very concept of a vice elemental. That is, that is good. That is, that is putting it above average. I think I'm going to go, I'm going to go with a five actually, because there's so many elements. Because there's the idea that these pig faced people are like a thing, like because of a curse. Yes, there's witches and a sort of ironic justice, I suppose. The potential ghost of a pig faced person, slash the concept of a vice elemental being some sort of ghost

that just turns you bad. Yeah, that's good, isn't it? A bit shiny. Yeah, we've not come across that before, I don't think. In all our years of lawmaning. So, yeah, I'm going full five. Thank you so much. I paused there for a second because I just read the Sunday Sport headline. I wasn't flashing my blank, I was shoplifting sausages. Right. Sorry. And I realize I've been saying daily sport when I mean Sunday Sport headline. I wasn't flashing my blanco as shoplifting sausages. Right. Sorry. And I realized I've been saying

Daily Sport when I mean Sunday Sport. We've always meant Sunday Sport. Yes. Although the Daily Sport also doesn't exist. My second category, names. And I think you can probably include good hilarious headlines from the Sunday Sport in the category of names. Did Hitler send monkeys into space? We're on the same website. Yeah. The Jeremy Corbyn. The graphic has a really obvious Photoshop labeled, crashed Nazi space probe and monkey skeleton.

The monkey got like three feet away from the probe before dying. Brilliant. And of course, the monkey spacesuit looks like a peanut. And as the arms come out of the suit, that's not airtight. Why would the body of the monkey decay on the moon? There are many questions. So names is this category. Yes. Yes. And as a headline is basically the name of a story. It's not even the moon, it's Pluto. It's supposed to have got to Pluto. What? Ridiculous. Yes, yes. And as a headline is basically the name of a story. It's not even the moon, it's Pluto. It's supposed to have got to Pluto.

What? Ridiculous. Sorry. Names. And there were some good names. Grisel Stevens. You're going to tell me this guy didn't bonk 500 women pretending to be James May. I mean, that seems like a lot if he was James May. Mistress Tannikinskinka? Yes, absolutely. The Mercurius Democritus and Mercurius Fumigosus Josus. The daily and Sunday sports of the 17th century.

That's not their tagline. I've added that. Yeah. I, I, I can't not give it a five, surely. Oh, it is the season for fives. It is the season. I'm feeling very, it a five, surely. Oh, it is the season for fives. It is the season. I'm feeling very, very Xmas pig festive. I'm in my Jamesathans.

So my third category is indecent pork pro-sau. Wow. Slash, I'm going to make you a truffa you can't refuse because several people offered to make truffs. And the whole, the conceit of the pig face lady mythos is that to be honest, to break the curse, which is a smaller element that doesn't seem to pop into the later tellings of the story in order for them to break the curse, they need to marry someone.

And then some of those guys were making some pretty indecent proposals via the medium of newspaper. Surely they were. So, yeah. Ah, Alistair, I think it's going to have to be, I think it's going to be another five. Ah, another five. I mean, I think it might just be the season. Perhaps, well, it is the season, isn't it? As we established. So, yes. All right. Okay. All right.

This last one better be rubbish. I'm not that confident. Our final category for you, James, is tell him Porky's, because these stories aren't true, are they? They're urban legends. O'Donnell. Wikipedia thinks he's an unreliable narrator. I think O'Donnell… That guy isn't even James May. The Nazis didn't go to Pluto with a dog. I was not shocked about why that guy put the wattsits there. All right, Alistair, I can't believe this, but in the spirit of Christmas Pig,

and the fact that these are all horrible lies. Yeah, yeah. It is a five. A five. A top- Christmas pig episode. Well, Christmas pig to you, James. Christmas pig to you and all those listening who celebrate. Which is a surprising number of people, to be honest. Yeah. Yeah. There's a whole Christmas pig. There's a Christmas pig, Secret Santa. What is the name for it? Is it Secret Christmas Pig?

I think it's Secret Xmas Pig. Yeah. Secret Xmas Pig. Stylised as Xmas Pig. Well, James, I hope you've learned a lesson there that just because you've seen someone's hands doesn't mean that you know whether or not they have a pig's face. Ah, that was wonderful. It is of course Christmas pig season so we're going to have a few bonus Christmas pig episodes coming up over the Christmas period. No way. Yeah, we've got loads of little Christmas pig treats. I mean that sounds like, who? What are you describing there? A little pig treat. And thank you very much to Joe for editing this episode. Thank you Joe. Merry Christmas. Thank you to all the people on Patreon.com forward slash lawman podcast.

You support us, you can join them. Happy holidays, seasons, greetings. Well, Merry Christmas, pig one and all. And Hog bless us, everyone. Could I interest you in indecent pork posal? That's too much, even for a Sunday sport. Indecent pro-po-sal? Yes, that's what I was going to say. Yes, definitely.

That's it. That's the one. Indecent pro-po-sal. Is that good wordplay?