The Impostress Rabbit

Summary

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Hoax! – "The Impostress Rabbit"

Original Air Date: October 27, 2025
Hosts: Dana Schwartz & Lizzie Logan

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Episode Overview

This lively, irreverent episode explores the strange historical case of Mary Toft, a poor woman in 18th-century England who convinced doctors and high society that she miraculously gave birth to rabbits and other animal parts. The hosts—Dana Schwartz and Lizzie Logan—delve into the details of the hoax, the social context, the medical gullibility of the time, and how the story became a sensation. Throughout, they discuss why people are drawn to hoaxes, the social dynamics that let them spread, and draw parallels between the past and contemporary media landscape.

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Main Discussion Points & Key Insights

1. Setting the Scene: Godalming & Mary Toft's Life

[03:50–07:25]

• The episode begins with the dreariness of early 1700s Godalming, a small, impoverished English town:
  • Mary Toft, at 24, walks hours daily to work the hop fields, toiling in poverty with two (possibly three) children and a husband out of work.
  • "Imagine, like, being pregnant, having two children at home... a husband who is likely out of work, and just like, living this miserable existence." —Dana [05:58]
• Mary suffers a miscarriage in August 1726; shockingly, a month later, “she starts having the symptoms of labor” [06:34]

2. The Body Horror & The Hoax Begins

[07:25–09:35]

• Local male midwife John Howard is summoned; claims Mary delivers various animal parts—pigs' bladders, cat’s paw, eel spine, and multiple dead baby rabbits.
• “Dead baby rabbits coming out of a human lady’s vagina. That’s gross.” —Lizzie [08:22]
• Mary says she was craving rabbit throughout pregnancy—her longing transmuted her pregnancy into producing rabbits, a concept known as maternal impression, then taken seriously by some in medicine.

3. Science, Superstition, and Gender

[09:35–12:44]

• The hosts unpack how early Enlightenment England is still riddled with folklore and misogynistic pseudo-science about women’s bodies:
  • “Pregnant women could influence their unborn babies with their thoughts and their experiences.” —Dana [09:43]
• Dana critiques contemporary and historical attitudes toward pregnancy and female “mystery.”
  • “I really hated when I was pregnant... it’s condescending.” —Dana [11:29]
• The combination of superstition and emerging science created fertile ground for sensational stories.

4. Publicity, Medical Obsession, Newspapers

[12:44–14:45]

• News of the “rabbit lady” spreads rapidly; doctors pickle and display rabbit specimens; newspapers in London and Guildford publish accounts.
• King George I, intrigued, sends his physician Nathaniel St. André and secretary Samuel Molyneux to investigate.

5. Enter Nathaniel St. André: Opportunist to Royalty

[19:26–23:44]

• St. André: painted as an “opportunistic dilettante with a taste for ornately embroidered shirts” [19:31]
  • He’s a European immigrant who charmed his way to royal favor—a point of resentment for English elites.
• Dana contextualizes George I’s unpopularity and the court’s suspicion of foreigners.
• St. André examines Mary, witnesses “her stomach... pulsing and quivering,” and 15th rabbit part “delivered” [22:37]; finds Mary in fine humor.

6. The Media Circus & Skepticism

[23:44–26:42]

• King brings Mary to London, sets her up with a pension; she becomes a tabloid sensation, the subject of scrutiny by multiple doctors.
• Lizzie draws a direct line to today’s culture: “No, we haven’t [grown past freak shows], we just have TLC.” [23:54]
• Skeptics note the delivered rabbits have corn/hay in their bellies, indicating they were not born in utero.
  • “These rabbits aren’t originating from inside her.” —Dana [25:55]
• Increasing evidence points to a hoax; Mary stops producing rabbits under tight supervision.

7. The Confession Unravels the Truth

[27:01–29:39]

• A bathhouse porter reports being asked to smuggle in rabbit parts.
• Dr. Manningham threatens surgery; Mary confesses under pressure that her husband, in-laws, and another woman helped insert animal parts into her body to fake births.
  • “It’s amazing that she didn’t die of a bacterial infection.” —Dana [28:38]
• The hoax was perpetuated for money and attention. Mary quickly fades from public view.

8. Satire, Class, & Sex in Public Reaction

[31:17–34:53]

• The scandal is a goldmine for satirists, who mock foreigners, women, and elite gullibility.
• William Hogarth’s famous print lampoons St. André and the learned doctors, making relentless anatomical puns.
• Mary is paraded in prison; crowds pay to gawk at her.
• Eventually, the authorities discretionarily release her—prosecuting would embarrass too many powerful victims.

9. What Became of the Players?

[39:46–43:40]

• St. André’s career and royal favor are destroyed; he keeps the title but loses salary, social standing, and money.
• In a bizarre twist, he treats (and soon marries the widow of) the king’s secretary, Samuel Molyneux, after Molyneux’s sudden death—prompting accusations of foul play:
  • “That very night, St André elopes with his widow. That very night. Body not even cold yet. So suspicious.” —Dana [41:13]
• Mary Toft fades into obscurity, is reportedly brought out at dinner parties as a “curiosity,” and dies in poverty, remembered as “Mary Toft, widow, the impostress rabbit.” [44:19]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Bodies are a horror.” —Dana [04:04]
• “It’s gross. I wanted to warn you before this episode. It’s pretty gross.” —Dana [08:07]
• “The satirists have a field day... They get to make fun of foreigners, the elite, and women all at once.” —Dana [31:17]
• “This woman is sort of being tortured... by this scam that her husband, mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and... a local organ grinder is putting her up to.” —Dana [29:08]
• “It was a perfect storm... Sometimes there’s a perfect storm of something that receives main character of the day energy...” —Dana [45:12]

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Key Timestamps & Segments

• [03:50] – Introducing Mary Toft & the 1726 Godalming setting
• [07:24] – John Howard observes the first “animal births”
• [09:35] – Explanations rooted in contemporary superstition (maternal impression)
• [12:44] – The publicity machine kicks in; public obsession rises
• [19:26] – Saint Andre’s (dubious) credentials & social context
• [22:37] – Saint Andre attends Mary during a “rabbit delivery”
• [25:55] – Skepticism as rabbits are found with “wrong” stomach contents
• [27:01] – The bathhouse, bribery, and the confession
• [31:17] – The satirical response, Hogarth’s print, and public outrage
• [39:46] – Saint André’s downfall & suspicious marriage plot twist
• [44:19] – Mary Toft’s later life and legacy

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Tone & Style

The tone is informal, darkly comedic, and at times pointedly feminist and skeptical—a hallmark of both hosts. The grisly aspects are discussed with humor and cringing honesty, but the human cost to Mary Toft and the ridiculous credulity of the medical establishment are never lost from view.

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Takeaways

• Hoaxes often work when they reflect and exploit social anxieties—about gender, class, science, and who gets believed.
• Even in an era of “enlightenment,” gullibility and spectacle triumphed when it served status or narrative.
• The disempowered—like Mary Toft—often pay the highest price, even when their deceptions briefly “succeed.”
• As Dana sums up: “Sometimes there’s a perfect storm... it really captured the moment and had this lasting legacy for centuries.” [45:19]

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Listener reminder: This is the “most vagina-heavy episode of Hoax,” but as the hosts flag, the potential for future body-horror hoaxes remains unlimited.

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Transcript

[iHeart Podcast Announcer]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Johnny Knoxville / Various Promo Voices]

Hello, America's sweetheart. Johnny Knoxville here. I want to tell you about my new true crime podcast, Crimeless Hillbilly Heist from Smartless Media, Campside Media and big money players. It's a wild tale about a gang of high functioning nitwits who somehow pulled off America's third largest cash heist. Kind of like Robin Hood, except for the part where he steals from the rich and gives to the poor. I'm not that generous. It's a damn near inspiring true story for anyone out there who's ever shot for the moon, then just totally muffed up the landing. They stole $17 million and had not bought a ticket to help him escape.

[Dana Schwartz]

So we're sitting like, oh God, what do we do?

[Johnny Knoxville / Various Promo Voices]

What do we do? That was dumb. People, do not follow my example. Listen to Crimeless Hillbilly Heist on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dana Schwartz]

I live below a cult leader and.

[Lizzie Logan]

I fear I've angered her.

[Dana Schwartz]

Wait a minute, Sophia, how do you know she's a cult leader?

[Lizzie Logan]

Well, Dakota, luckily it's I'm not afraid of a scary story week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This person writes, my neighbor has been blasting music every day and doing dirt rituals and now my ceiling is collapsing. I tried to support them, but things keep getting weirder. I think they might be part of a cult. Hold up a real life cult.

[Dana Schwartz]

And what is a dirt ritual?

[Lizzie Logan]

No clue, Dakota. Find out how it ends. Listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever.

[Dana Schwartz]

You get your podcasts.

[Johnny Knoxville / Various Promo Voices]

What's up everybody? It's snacks from the trap nerds. And all October long, we're bringing you the horror. Boogity, boogity boogity. We kicking off this month with some of my best horror games to keep you terrified. Then we'll be talking about our favorite horror and Halloween movies and figuring out why black people always die first. And it's the of Tony's horror show side Quest, written and narrated by yours truly. We'll also be doing a full episode reading with commentary. And we'll cap it off with a horror movie battle Royale. Open your free Aha Radio app and search Trapped Nerds Podcast and listen.

[Dana Schwartz]

Now two rich young Americans move to.

[Narrator for True Crime Segments]

The Costa Rican jungle to start over. But one of them will end up dead and the other tried for murder three times. It starts with a dream, a nature reserve and a spirit spectacular new home.

[Dana Schwartz]

But Little by little, they lose it.

[Johnny Knoxville / Various Promo Voices]

They actually lose it.

[Narrator for True Crime Segments]

They sort of went nuts until one night, everything spins out of control. Listen to Hell in Heaven on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dana Schwartz]

You're listening to Hoax, a production of I Heart Podcast.

[Lizzie Logan]

Folks.

[Johnny Knoxville / Various Promo Voices]

It's a Hoax album. No one ever seems to release me when I swear I never was receiving.

[Dana Schwartz]

Welcome to Hoax, a podcast about the lies we wish were true and truths.

[Lizzie Logan]

That sound like lies.

[Dana Schwartz]

I'm the ghost of Dana Schwartz.

[Lizzie Logan]

And I'm the evil twin of Lizzie Logan.

[Dana Schwartz]

Welcome to the show, Lizzy. Before we start on this episode, I want to ask what your tolerance is for body horror. Like, do you get grossed out easily? Do you watch House? Did you watch the Pit?

[Lizzie Logan]

I liked the Pit quite a bit.

[Dana Schwartz]

Okay.

[Lizzie Logan]

Rhyme intentional. I can close my eyes during Body Horror. I guess since this is audio medium, I can close my ears.

[Dana Schwartz]

Well, I'm not gonna show you any photos.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

Because this story takes place in the 1700s. Okay. Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

I'm not a huge fan of gore or body horror, but I understand that bodies decay and we have blood inside of us.

[Dana Schwartz]

Bodies are a horror. Yes. And one just sort of overall note before we start this episode, if you're someone who's very sensitive to issues of fertility or miscarriage, this might not be the episode for you because it involves pregnancy and pregnancy loss and sort of pregnancy trauma. Okay. We're going to start in a town called Godalming, which is a very small market town 50 miles southwest of London. We're in the 1700s, so this town is a very, very poor town, and it's basically just like a stagecoach stop en route to London. So the people who are living there are living their very boring lives, but they're seeing people in, like, glamorous London. Stagecoaches come by.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

So it's not a great place to live. From what it sounds like, our heroine for this episode is a woman named Mary Toft. She lives with her husband and their three young children. She got married when she was 17 to Joshua Toft, who was 18. He's a clothier, which means he, like, makes cloth makes sense. But work is very hard to come by. She works in a hop field.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay. Hops is like a type of grain that you make beer out. Beer out of. Yeah. Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

But she's, like, harvesting that for that, you know, works in a field with a lot of other women. At this point in the story when we're starting, she's 24 years old. She has two living children and one that has died. Although details on which children are living at what point in the story is a little tricky.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

So by this point, we believe she's had three pregnancies and she's pregnant with her fourth child.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

And still walking two hours a day to get to the hop field, working grueling hours and then walking two hours back.

[Lizzie Logan]

Rough.

[Dana Schwartz]

This is not a good life, I don't think. It doesn't sound like a fun life.

[Lizzie Logan]

No, She's. She's going through it.

[Dana Schwartz]

So imagine, like, being pregnant, having two children at home, at least two, possibly three. A husband who is likely out of work, and just like, living this miserable existence watching people in their fancy London carriages. In August of 1726, Mary has a miscarriage, unfortunately. Very sad. Very sad. A thing that happens to this day that people don't talk about. So what's strange is that she has this miscarriage in August and in September, a month later, she starts having the symptoms of labor.

[Lizzie Logan]

Oh.

[Dana Schwartz]

Which is not a thing that should be happening. No. She's attended by her mother in law, Anne Toft, and a neighbor. Anne Toft is not, like, registered as a midwife in, like, the parish registries, but she has, you know, has had many kids, I think. Sort of helps people out, is sort of a maternal figure. So it's not like Mary's being treated by doctors yet, but she's being treated by, like, the local women who can help her out, but they do not know what is happening. And so they call what is known as a male midwife from the nearby town of Guildford, which is like the nearest, not big town, but bigger town. And this doctor or male midwife comes named John Howard, and he comes to examine Mary Toft, and he sees that she has given birth not to a human baby, but to strange animal parts.

[Lizzie Logan]

Oh. Oh, dear.

[Dana Schwartz]

Which is not a thing that happens. Nope. Usually.

[Lizzie Logan]

Nope.

[Dana Schwartz]

And so John Howard reports that usually not happens.

[Lizzie Logan]

Ever.

[Dana Schwartz]

Ever. Not at all. Not at all.

[Lizzie Logan]

I would say like 0% of the time.

[iHeart Podcast Announcer]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

But John Howard is astonished and is taking note of this thing that is happening. And over the next few weeks, he records that Mary Toft gives, say, birth, for lack of a better word, to a pig splatter, a cat's paw, the backbone of an eel, and then multiple dead baby rabbits. And it's the rabbits that are the most notable listener.

[Lizzie Logan]

You can't see me, but I'm making a face like, that's gross.

[Dana Schwartz]

It's gross. I wanted to warn you before this episode. It's Pretty gross.

[Lizzie Logan]

That's pretty gross. And I'm not grossed out by miscarriage or birth. I'm grossed out by dead baby rabbits coming out of a human lady's vagina.

[Dana Schwartz]

Dead baby rabbits coming out of human lady's vagina.

[Lizzie Logan]

That's gross.

[Dana Schwartz]

I'm gonna.

[Lizzie Logan]

I think I'm okay to say that. I don't think that makes me a bad feminist. No, I think that's a little gross.

[Dana Schwartz]

It's gross. It's not a thing that should biologically happen.

[Lizzie Logan]

That's wrong.

[Dana Schwartz]

People are confused, but they have an explanation and aren't she's a witch. Well, Mary says that back in the spring when she was pregnant, she was out weeding in the field and saw a rabbit and she was hungry and craving rabbit meat, which would have been really expensive and she wouldn't have been able to afford it. And she chased the rabbit, but couldn't catch it, and then kept having super strong pregnancy craving for rabbit meat, like to make into a stew or pie, which is kind of like the beginning of Rapunzel when the mom really wants.

[Lizzie Logan]

That one, like the cabbage or whatever.

[Dana Schwartz]

From the witch's garden. But anyway, she says a later doctor wrote in an interview that this set her a longing for rabbit being then, as she thought, five weeks gone with child. The woman charged with longing for the rabbit that she couldn't catch. But she denied it. She then dreamt of rabbit and had a constant and strong desire to eat rabbits, but being very poor and indigent, could not procure any. So that was the idea of what caused this.

[Lizzie Logan]

So like the power of her mind turned her half miscarried baby into like rabbit nests.

[Dana Schwartz]

Multiple baby rabbits. Maternal impression is what the name of this was. And it was a fairly common belief at the time. People thought that pregnant women could influence their unborn babies with their thoughts and their experiences. Have you heard of like Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man? Yes, this is later. But his explanation for why he.

[Lizzie Logan]

Was it like his mom looked at.

[Dana Schwartz]

An elephant, his mom was startled by an elephant, which again is like a. We think is like a silly story. And I don't even know if he actually believed it, but that was sort of the circus explanation. Yeah. And in the 18th century, work on midwifery by this Dr. John Maubry, he advised women to avoid, quote, playing with dogs, squirrels, apes and et cetera, as this could lead to the birth of vile creatures.

[Lizzie Logan]

Well, you know, you gotta be careful.

[Dana Schwartz]

What I kind of find interesting is this is the 1700s, so the scientific enlightenment is happening. But I think it's kind of important to remember that despite the fact the way that we're sort of taught history in schools where it's like, ah, this year the scientific enlightenment, ah, this year the, you know, renaissance, like these things don't happen all at once. People don't just like make a declaration and then everyone's mind is changed.

[Narrator for True Crime Segments]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

And like people still are like feeding babies honey and giving them botulism. Like so like I would not be surprised if like the next TikTok trend was like, my baby has like really wide set eyes because I watched, you know, too many nature documentaries while I was pregnant.

[Dana Schwartz]

But yeah, it's this also. I think it also reinforces this idea that like the pregnant woman is like, has magical, like mysterious powers.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yes.

[Dana Schwartz]

Which is I really hated when I was pregnant. That sort of like, you got it, mama. Go girl. Like you're a goddess. Because I think it's condescending. Yes. I think it's very. Like women are over here and can be mysterious. Men will be in charge of politics and economics and literature and like actual tangible. But you're a goddess like you. So that's why I sort of have like my. It makes my teeth hurt a little.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. And like fan you is like palm fronds, feed you grapes and like don't take your mind seriously but like focus on your belly.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, you go girl. Mama, you're so mysterious, you're a moon goddess. While over here like men are doing like art and commerce and politics. Sure. But all that's to say is the idea that she is having these dead rabbit babies is not like on its face, absurd. There is a culturally understood explanation, but. But it's still amazing because this is not something that happens every day. And over the next few weeks, Howard, the male midwife, keeps delivering these dead rabbits and he writes to doctors and scientists in London and he's kept the 11 rabbits that he's delivered pickled in jars on a shelf.

[Lizzie Logan]

Is she okay?

[Dana Schwartz]

In what way?

[Lizzie Logan]

Like if there's dead rabbits coming, I mean, is she like dying? She like hemorrhaging? Like, is she like up and about?

[Dana Schwartz]

No, she seems fine. And later a doctor will be like, she's in pretty good humor.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

But yeah. So the, the word gets out. October 10, 1726. There's the first newspaper notice. Do you want to read this newspaper notice?

[Lizzie Logan]

From Guildford comes a strange but well attested piece of news that a poor woman who lives at Gondolman, near that town, who has a husband and two children now living with her was about a month past delivered by Mr. John Howard, an eminent surgeon and man midwife living at Guildford of a creature resembling a rabbit.

[Dana Schwartz]

The news is out. It's a pretty like level headed news article, I would say, for a pretty unbelievable thing.

[Lizzie Logan]

Preamble with like the punchline right at the end.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, right. Oh yeah. Dr. Place creature resembling a rabbit born. So King George I decides that he's going to send his court anatomist Nathaniel St Andre to go investigate. And he also sends along the Prince of Wales secretary, this guy Samuel Molyneux, who is a secretary but also a scientist who measures these things called stellar parallaxes, which are important and I do not understand them, but like good on him. That's like an important scientific discovery unrelated to this.

[Lizzie Logan]

So science is happening in this kingdom in some way.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, this guy, Samuel Molyneux is doing a great job somewhere else in unrelated.

[Lizzie Logan]

Matters unrelated to whether or not women can give birth to dead rabbits. Yeah.

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[Narrator for True Crime Segments]

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[Lizzie Logan]

All I know is what I've been.

[Dana Schwartz]

Told and that to have truth is a whole lie.

[Maggie Freeling]

For almost a decade, the murder of an 18 year old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story.

[Dana Schwartz]

I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her.

[Maggie Freeling]

We know a story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national tv.

[Johnny Knoxville / Various Promo Voices]

Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran.

[Maggie Freeling]

My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist producer and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find.

[Johnny Knoxville / Various Promo Voices]

I did not know her and I did not kill her or rape or burn or any of that other stuff that y' all said.

[Dana Schwartz]

They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her. They made me say that I poured gas on her.

[Maggie Freeling]

From Lava for Good. This is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame.

[Johnny Knoxville / Various Promo Voices]

America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people and small towns.

[Maggie Freeling]

Listen to Graves county in the Bone Valley feed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[Johnny Knoxville / Various Promo Voices]

This is a tape recorded statement. Person being interviewed is Krista Gail Pike. This is in regards to the death of Colleen Slimmer.

[Dana Schwartz]

She started going off on me when I hit her. I just hit her.

[Johnny Knoxville / Various Promo Voices]

I'm hitter and hit her and hit her.

[iHeart Podcast Announcer]

On a cold January day in 1995, 18 year old Christa pike killed 19 year old Colleen Slemmer in the woods of Knoxville, Tennessee. Since her conviction, Christa has been sitting on death row. The state has asked for an execution date for Christa. We let people languish in prison for decades raising questions about who we consider fundamentally unrestorable. How does someone prove that they deserve to live?

[Lizzie Logan]

We are starting the recording now. Please state your first and last name.

[Dana Schwartz]

Krista Pike.

[iHeart Podcast Announcer]

Listen to unrestorable Season 2 proof of life on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dana Schwartz]

But the Important figure here. The real star of the show is Nathaniel St. Andre.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

And what you need to know about him is even at the time, he was a pretty controversial figure, because my favorite sort of description of him came from an article in the Paris Review that described him as, quote, an opportunistic dilettante with a taste for ornately embroidered shirts, which is just a great way to put someone down. He was born in Switzerland, traveled Europe as a servant, and he worked as a language teacher, a dancer, and a fencer, like a fencing teacher. And he's sort of like a charmer, seducer type.

[Lizzie Logan]

I am getting, like, a real Derek Blasberg vibe from this guy.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So when I say that this guy, you know, traveled as a servant, language teacher, dancing tutor, fencing tutor, you might not be thinking a surgeon or court anatomist.

[Lizzie Logan]

No, I'm more thinking he is of the, like, the softer arts.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

Like, he is of the social graces and the finer things.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. And basically what happened is he's injured by a fencing student, he's treated by a surgeon, and realized that that guy was making a lot of money, and so he decided to pivot because he didn't think it seemed too hard. And at the time, it wasn't like there were med school boards to deal with. So he just does a perfunctory internship, apprenticeship in London, sets up a practice, and just charms his way all the way to the king. Great. And I think the context is important that the king at the time is George I, who's the first Hanover king. I'm gonna put my noble blood hat on just for a second, but did you see the favorite?

[Lizzie Logan]

Yes.

[Dana Schwartz]

So Queen Anne, the one that Olivia Colman is great Protestant, dies with no children.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yes.

[Dana Schwartz]

Very important in England at the time.

[Lizzie Logan]

She had a lot of miscarriages.

[Dana Schwartz]

She had a lot of miscarriages. And in that movie, a lot of rabbits. But that is not historically accurate. That was just the director having some fun. Okay. She's Protestant, dies with no babies. They very important in England at the time. And I'm brushing over a lot of important stuff. The king and queen can only be Protestant. No more Catholics. So her nearest Protestant relative is a German cousin who's the Hanovers. So that's George I, comes over to England. He was not born in England. He does not speak English very well at all. So he's sort of this foreign German king that's coming over to be king of England kind of on a technicality.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

And so this St. Andre guy kind of represents everything that English people hate about George I. Because he's foreign. He's like, German speaking. And it's like charisma and fluff over substance and science. Yeah. So it's like people are not thrilled with the King right now.

[Lizzie Logan]

Gotcha.

[Dana Schwartz]

And people are not thrilled that they think he's kind of stupid and easily seduced by these, like, charmers. Not popular.

[Lizzie Logan]

No.

[Dana Schwartz]

But St. Andre arrives to Guildford, sees Mary while she's in labor with her allegedly 15th rabbit. Oh, my God. He. By this is from his account. He watches as her stomach is pulsing and quivering like there is, like, a living animal inside her. And then he sees the. Sorry. Like dead animal pieces that are expelled. And the animal pieces are in pieces. Because his theory is that it's the force of the uterus. It's not. It's not good. It's gross.

[Lizzie Logan]

No. That's sad. And I want to know what's actually happening to this poor woman.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. And as.

[Lizzie Logan]

Cause it ain't rabbits.

[Dana Schwartz]

You asked how she's doing. He describes her as having a sullen temper, but says that except for when she was in labor pains, she laughed very heartily with us. So she's doing okay.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

Saint Andre takes some of the pickled rabbits back to the king. And the king is. This is amazing. He arranges for Mary to be brought to London and given a pension for her trouble. Which I guess is just the thing that happens if a medical anomaly is happening to you. Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

You know what I was thinking about recently is how you mentioned the Elephant Man. We think about how there used to be freak shows and people would pay.

[Dana Schwartz]

To see the freak.

[Lizzie Logan]

And isn't it good that we've grown past that as a society and. No, we haven't. We just have TLC.

[Dana Schwartz]

We have TLC and we have people doing it to themselves on TikTok. Yes, truly.

[Lizzie Logan]

And like, yes, of course Mary Toft would have a pension now. It would be called, like, a sponsorship on Instagram.

[Dana Schwartz]

She would be like, story time. Here's how I gave birth to rabbits.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

But the context, I think, also is like, medical mysteries and marvels were, like, a common attraction to people.

[Lizzie Logan]

Abort human interests. Like, yes, I would be interested. Like, if this were happening, I would be like, what's up with this, lady?

[Dana Schwartz]

I mean, a tidbit that I kind of think is interesting is in 1777, the year that Paris gets its very first newspaper, London already has 300 daily newspapers.

[Lizzie Logan]

I was about to say that seems really late for Paris to get his first newspaper.

[Dana Schwartz]

Like smoking, reading books, Paris, get it together, poetry. But London is very much like a city of gossip and tabloid journalism. People are going to coffee houses to read the news and this sort of thing is getting attention and apparently a pension from the King. People even at the time. And this I feel like is a theme for hoax where it's like rather than people just being dumb back then, people even at the time are skeptical.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

Mary is examined by a doctor named Richard Manningham who sees her having something like a seizure or a fit. He sees belly movement happening, something that lasts a little while. He does not quite know what it is. But people also are skeptical because they examine the rabbits that Mary delivers and sees that they have corn and hay and grass in their stomach. So it's like these rabbits aren't originating from inside of her. And also St Andre tests the rabbit's lungs and determined that it had breathed air like it had already. I don't know what happens to lung tissue when it breathes air, but like, I think he tests and it floats, which indicates something. So there's like, how were these rabbits aren't being born inside her?

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

They take Mary to a bathhouse in London. I don't know why not a hospital, but they take her to a place called Mr. Lacy's Bagneo in Leicester Fields, which is like, it is a badass.

[Lizzie Logan]

Try to get her to chill out.

[Dana Schwartz]

Maybe, but I also think it's like a place that like she could be examined within, sort of. Not public, but she's being examined by as many as 10 doctors at a time, which feels, when you think about it, very invasive and is probably very unpleasant for her.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

She doesn't give birth to any more rabbits.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

But based on this sort of fit and seizure that that doctor has, I don't. I don't know, I'm not going to diagnose someone posthumously, but it seems like she's probably suffering from a bad infection.

[Lizzie Logan]

Oh, interesting.

[Dana Schwartz]

At the Beginning of December, St. Andre publishes his accounts of these events and it becomes a London obsession. He writes this publication called A Short Narrative of an Extraordinary Delivery of Rabbits. But three days later, it all falls apart.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

Because a porter at the bathhouse reports that either Mary, or depending on the accounts, Mary's sister in law, Margaret Toft, attempt to attempted to bribe him into smuggling pieces of rabbit into the bathhouse. Manningham, the doctor basically confronts Mary and says if she doesn't tell the truth, they'll need to do exploratory surgery on her, which is a pretty bad threat.

[Lizzie Logan]

Also, like without her consent, I mean, can't she just be like, no, you cannot do exploratory surgery on me?

[Dana Schwartz]

Like, I think he's bluffing. Yeah. I deeply hope he's bluffing. The bluff works. She immediately breaks down and confesses that it was a hoax. Yeah. The way she confesses. December 7, again, just a few days after St Andre published his big account of this amazing thing happening, she publishes her own apology and confession. She blames her husband, her mother in law, and strangely the wife of a local organ grinder for giving her this idea and sort of pushing her into it. To me it seems like an insane hoax, but I guess it was working and it was like going to give her a pension from the King and it was giving her a lot of attention. But the way she frames it is she was scared and impressionable and trying to make some extra money for her family. And the idea was that because she had had these pregnancies and this miscarriage, her cervix was open.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

And they were putting dead animal pieces inside of her manually to be delivered.

[Lizzie Logan]

Oh, boy.

[Dana Schwartz]

One like modern day researcher points out that it's amazing that she didn't die of a bacterial infection. Yeah. And also something horrific that I just want to acknowledge is that St. Andre in his account will talk about how these animal pieces, some of them had their nails still intact. Yeah. So this is like an incredible. It's a, it's a hoax. I'm putting like a hose.

[Lizzie Logan]

You're not even supposed to leave a tampon in for very long. You're supposed to be really careful with what you put up there.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. So this is like this woman is sort of being tortured and by this scam that her husband, mother in law, sister in law, and I guess like a local organ grinder is putting her up to. It is. Yeah, it's gross. But it worked in terms of the hoax. Temporarily.

[Lizzie Logan]

I wonder if she just had like crazy post miscarriage depression and was just like needed like attention and like a break from the fields and like.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. You know, also her life is miserable.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

Her life is boring, sad and miserable. If one of her children hadn't died by this point, one of her children would die. She had a miscarriage. She walks two hours back and forth. Her husband's unemployed, manual labor every day, making so little money they can't afford rabbit meat. I mean, she lives a boring, miserable life. Someone probably came to her with this idea and it's like, okay, maybe it's. She was willing to endure this for money and Like, a little bit of attention and excitement.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

I mean, it's awful. It also makes me think of. Have you seen the movie Catch Me if youf Can?

[Lizzie Logan]

Many times. Delightful film.

[Dana Schwartz]

Delightful film. One of my favorites. I think it was on my New York Times when you were doing, like, your top 10. Yes, yes. I love it. There's that scene that Tom Hanks is like, I gotta know, how did you pass the bar? And he's like, I studied passed the bar. That kind of. It's like, how is she delivering rabbit parts?

[Lizzie Logan]

She's like, I stuffed rabbit parts out of my couch.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, she is physically delivering rabbit parts. It's not a sleight of hand routine.

[Lizzie Logan]

Oh, sure, yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

Or it's like David.

[Lizzie Logan]

It's a sleight of vagina.

[Dana Schwartz]

Vagina routine. Or it's like David Blaine, like, when he, like, holds his breath for, like, a long time. Like, sometimes they're not magic tricks. Sometimes he just, like, teaches himself to do that.

[Lizzie Logan]

Oh, sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

So, yeah, this becomes a. It was already a major story because it was like this body horror sensation, but it's like a perfect storm to become a massive story. The satirists have a field day because they get to mock. They get to do their favorite thing. They get to make fun of foreigners, the elite and women all at once.

[Lizzie Logan]

I mean, and. And not to be like, as they should stick it to her. But, like, you set yourself up for that Mary. Like, you're shoving dead animal parts up your lady bits. Like, yeah, people are gonna make some jokes.

[Dana Schwartz]

The satirists have a field day. Yeah. They mostly love making fun of St Andre because he's this silly foreigner. Great. That's their sort of famous target. Mary is kind of framed as, like, a stupid victim, even though she was the one who sort of did the hoax on the Doctor. She's sort of framed as, like, a country bumpkin. And it's the doctors who are stupid idiots. The most famous takedown is from an artist, William Hogarth, who spoofs it as, like, the Adoration of the Magi, with, like, Taft as Virgin Mary and the, like, wise men are Saint Andre and his colleagues, like, get it? Because they're not wise.

[Lizzie Logan]

Indeed.

[Dana Schwartz]

And the illustration is titled Caniculari, which is a double pun because the Latin for rabbit is cuniculus and vulva is cunus, as you might imagine. So it's very clever. And also it's like, because those are the roots, there's a similar word, coney, which is a ubiquitous sort of 18th century London slang. For both rabbit and female genitalia. So, like, the jokes write themselves.

[Lizzie Logan]

The Kimmel monologue of this era would have just been hit after hit after hit after hit.

[Dana Schwartz]

It's like a sex scandal. It's like a comedy sex scandal. The absurdity and silliness of it is also why it just keeps getting made fun of. Again, because Saint Andre was already this figure that people hated and, like, hated that he charmed his way all the way to the king, but now there's like, a vagina involved.

[Lizzie Logan]

Was there. Did he, like, lose his position based on this?

[Dana Schwartz]

We will get get there. Okay, great, great, great, great, great. But the satirists are also. They are making fun of Mary, but they're not framing her, as we said, as, like, conniving or conniving. Someone writes this, like, spoof also, like.

[Lizzie Logan]

You can't take her down any farther. Like, she's already poor as hell.

[Dana Schwartz]

A poor person who lives in a nothing village who lives a miserable life. Someone writes, like, a spoof confession by her. Like, I don't even know what the equivalent is. Like a spoof first person confession called Much Ado About Nothing that paints her as, like, grasping and stupid and sexually promiscuous.

[Lizzie Logan]

The classics.

[Dana Schwartz]

The classics again, like, like I said, like, you get to make fun of stupid, slutty women and foreigners. Everyone's favorite thing. Mary is actually arrested as a notorious and vile cheat for, you know, fraud. And she's sent to Bridewell Prison, where people would pay almost to see her as a zoo animal. Like, she would have to be, like, paraded out to, like, it's public humiliation by design. Yeah. Because that's what they were doing at the time. It was entertainment. It's like, very much like, live by the sword, die by the sword, unfortunately.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. I mean, you know, here's that attention you ordered.

[Dana Schwartz]

She is eventually released after a few weeks. No charges, probably because pushing it further just would have embarrassed everyone who fell for it. Yeah. Because again, like, the king and, like, the king's royal anatomist, like, had fallen for this. So they just sort of are like, go back to your nowhere town. Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

And, like, get some clean underwear and, like, let your cervix close up. And, like, stop shoving things up yourself.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. Please.

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[Narrator for True Crime Segments]

Run a business and Not Thinking about Radio? Think again because more people are listening to the radio and iHeart today than they were 20 years ago. And only iHeart broadcast radio connects with more Americans than TV, digital, social, any other media, even twice as many teens than TikTok. And that reach means everything. Just think about the universal marketing formula. The number of consumers who hear your message times the response rate equals the results. Now let's get those results growing for your business. Radio's here now more than ever and iheart's leading the way. Think radio can help your business? Think iHeart streaming, podcasting and radio where the reach is real. Let us show [e-mail] that's iheartadvertising.com or call 844-844-Iheart one more time. Just call 844-844-iheart and get radio working for you.

[Dana Schwartz]

All I know is what I've been told and that's a half truth is a whole lie.

[Maggie Freeling]

For almost a decade, the murder of an 18 year old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story.

[Dana Schwartz]

I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her.

[Maggie Freeling]

We know a story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national tv.

[Johnny Knoxville / Various Promo Voices]

Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran.

[Maggie Freeling]

My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist producer and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find.

[Johnny Knoxville / Various Promo Voices]

I did not know her and I did not kill her or rape or burn or any of that other stuff that y' all said.

[Dana Schwartz]

They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her. They made me say that I pour gas on her.

[Maggie Freeling]

From Lava For Good. This is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame.

[Johnny Knoxville / Various Promo Voices]

America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns.

[Maggie Freeling]

Listen to Graves county in the Bone valley. Feed the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava For Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[Johnny Knoxville / Various Promo Voices]

This is a tape recorded statement. Person being interviewed is Krista Gail Pike. This is in regards to the death of a Colleen Slimmer.

[Dana Schwartz]

She started going off on me when I hit her. I just hit her and hit her and hit her and hit her.

[iHeart Podcast Announcer]

On a cold January day in 1995, 18 year old Christa pike killed 19 year old Colleen Slemmer in the woods of Knoxville, Tennessee. Since her conviction, Christa has been sitting on death row. The state has asked for an execution date for Christa. We let people languish in prison for decades, raising questions about who we consider fundamentally unrestorable. How does someone prove that they deserve to live?

[Lizzie Logan]

We are starting the recording now. Please state your first and last name.

[Dana Schwartz]

Krista Pike.

[iHeart Podcast Announcer]

Listen to unrestorable season two proof of life on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dana Schwartz]

Saint Andre, who you asked about, is publicly humiliated. His royal duties stop. His salary is removed. He tries to get another audience with the king. Can't. The king is like, I'm not interacting with this man anymore. He does still get to keep the title of court Anatomist. But I wonder if it is something almost like because he's not getting a salary anymore, it's like you can use it like New York Times bestseller like once it happens, once you get the title forever. But he's not getting a salary. King doesn't want to see him anymore. But you want to hear the craziest part of the story, please. Really unrelated again to the Mary thing, but relevant to the Saint Andre of it all. Remember how I told you that the first visit to Guildford he went with the secretary Molyneux, who was also a scientist. So Molyneux few years later, not a few years, the next year, suffers a fit in the House of Commons and he's treated by Saint Andre. And Molyneux dies that night, unfortunately.

[Lizzie Logan]

Wait, he's treated by disgraced anatomist St. Andre?

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. Meh. Gets their friends. He's still a doctor, you know. He's still using the title Court Anatomist. He's treated by disgraced anatomist, St Andre. He dies that night. So maybe he shouldn't have gotten that. That corn animus. And that very night, St Andre elopes with his widow. That very night. Body not even called yet. So suspicious.

[Lizzie Logan]

St Andre, Loki, the winner of this whole song.

[Dana Schwartz]

I mean, nuts, right? Probably. As you can imagine, one of Molyneux's relatives accuses St. Andre of poisoning him. Uh, yeah. But he, like, then sues and, like, wins an action for defamation because he can't, like, prove that he killed him on purpose, even though he eloped with his widow right away.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

Not great, but. And then when, unfortunately, when Elizabeth, that widow, dies, St. Andre loses her inheritance, so then loses access to her money. He had already lost a ton of other money in investments and a lot of his belongings in a fire. So when he dies at age 96, he's in an almshouse. So he. He doesn't have a great go of it. He probably was pretty good, actually, while he was married to Elizabeth. But over on the whole, pretty disgraced. Dies in poverty. And after this Mary Toft thing, he claims that he never ate rabbit again for the rest of his life.

[Lizzie Logan]

I wouldn't either.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, yeesh. Yeesh. Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

I mean, started from the bottom, Germany, sweet.

[Dana Schwartz]

Talked his way. He did the whole.

[Lizzie Logan]

What a life. What a life.

[Dana Schwartz]

He started as a servant. He was born in Switzerland and was a servant. He had no money or title, and.

[Lizzie Logan]

He talked his way all the way through all the rungs.

[Dana Schwartz]

All the rungs. If only he had understood the human nature of a poor woman trying to get money and attention. She's also 24. I don't know. People do stupid things in their early 20s.

[Lizzie Logan]

True. Including 700 animal parts up there. Nose.

[Dana Schwartz]

I'm gonna go on the record and say I don't think this was a good idea for her to do.

[Lizzie Logan]

No. And I would. I feel like she also would agree with that assessment.

[Dana Schwartz]

I mean, she pretty much disappears from public view after this. Good. She gives birth to a baby girl, apparently healthy, which is good. Occasionally also.

[Lizzie Logan]

What a cervix.

[Dana Schwartz]

What a cervix.

[Lizzie Logan]

That it could come back from this.

[Dana Schwartz]

That a healthy baby is being born.

[Lizzie Logan]

What an immune system down there.

[Dana Schwartz]

Honestly now, if ever I'm worried that I've kept a tampon in too long. You're like, well, if. If Mary.

[Lizzie Logan]

Mary Toft could come back from all those animals.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. Occasionally the Duke of Richmond, who was like the nearest major nobleman, would invite her to show her off at dinner parties because she was like, a Tabloid figure. So he would have dinner parties and be like, this is the rabbit lady.

[Lizzie Logan]

That's very tough.

[Dana Schwartz]

I mean, I don't think. It's not like she gets money because we have the record that in 1740 she's charged with the petty theft of fowls of, like, chickens. She's acquitted, but again, she's like, I don't know, not doing great. Yeah. She dies January 13, 1763, when she's like about 60 years old. And she's noted by the parish as, quote, mary Toft, widow, the imposterous rabbit. That's like her notation when she dies. We don't know where her grave is. No grave found, probably lost or destroyed. And that's kind of her sad life.

[Lizzie Logan]

Well, quite the hoax, Mary.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, it was a hoax. It worked. Unfortunately, the hoax, the reason it took off was mostly because people wanted to make fun of doctors.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

Like, she had fooled these, like, doctors who were pretty dumb and were ready to believe something kind of stupid. And then people mostly made fun of them. And I think that's why the hoax took off. It's like sometimes there's like a perfect storm of something that receives main character of the day energy where it's like, I'll say, remember, even though it's kind of in the news now, but by the time this comes out, the cheating couple at a Coldplay concert, where it's like, on the whole, that's not that big of a deal, but it really united the Internet because it's like, it's such an easy target of things we love to make fun of.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yes.

[Dana Schwartz]

Which is like people in power, workplace scandals, cheating, like, silliness. Like the fact that.

[Narrator for True Crime Segments]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

Like getting caught, getting in the way.

[Lizzie Logan]

You least expect it.

[Dana Schwartz]

So it's like a perfect storm. And in this case, it was a perfect storm. Even though it's like, on its whole, this is a sad story about, like a poor woman going to very grotesque measures for money and a little bit of attention. But because people got to make fun of this, like, foreign doctor and people didn't trust, like the king who surrounded himself with German speaking nobodies. And people love a sex scandal like that. You know, it's not sex, but it involves a vagina, which people think is funny at the time for a political cartoon, it really captured the moment and had this lasting legacy for centuries.

[Lizzie Logan]

I also think it is like childbirth is just mysterious enough.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

You were saying that like maternal imprintation is like.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, maternal impression.

[Lizzie Logan]

Impression. Like I read this thing that people used to believe that kittens could like crawl up inside a woman.

[Dana Schwartz]

Oh, God.

[Lizzie Logan]

And that, like, getting kittens removed was like, Victorian was like, if you had to go get an abortion, you were like, no, I was getting kittens removed. And I read that on Tumblr when I was really young and I was like, that's fascinating. And then I've tried to look for it and I can't ever find anyone ever saying that that's true. So that might have just been a thing someone made up on Tumblr. So if that's not true, I think that is fake. But someone wrote it on Tumblr once and it sounded so real and I believed it.

[Dana Schwartz]

If you have any information on that, please share because that is fascinating.

[Lizzie Logan]

Doesn't that sound real, though?

[Dana Schwartz]

It also does sound plausible how people come up with these sort of. Yeah, but also, like, Victorian era would come up with like polite explanations for.

[Lizzie Logan]

I was getting kittens removed.

[Dana Schwartz]

I was getting kittens removed.

[Lizzie Logan]

But I've never been able to find even the fake post from Tumblr. I've never been able to find any mention of it. It exists only in my mind.

[Dana Schwartz]

I think that also a takeaway from the story is kind of how unbelievable and how little we know about childbirth even now where people. Because you can't really test on pregnant ladies for legitimate ethical reasons. But that just means there's so much research that we don't have about pregnancy and childbirth. Like, I am someone who takes anti depression and anxiety medication and I had to go off them when I was pregnant because they were like, we just don't know. No one knows. They just have to retake them. No one knows. So they have done the research for some of them, but the one I was on specifically, they were just like, is it good or is it. I mean, is it fine or is it bad? We don't know. So you better not take them just to be safe. Which is nuts.

[Lizzie Logan]

It's crazy.

[Dana Schwartz]

So that's the.

[Lizzie Logan]

And you know who really could have used some antidepressants?

[Dana Schwartz]

Oh, my God. Mary Toft.

[Lizzie Logan]

Mary Toft.

[Dana Schwartz]

Ugh. I really want to, like, can you.

[Lizzie Logan]

Imagine if you could just go back in time and just hand out Lexapro?

[Dana Schwartz]

I also sort of am getting like a tie from Clueless Vibe from her. Like easily manipulated and just wants to be loved and like, wants a little bit of attention. Yes. I just don't you just want to sit her down and be like, mary, it's okay.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, just stop.

[Dana Schwartz]

Let's like, stop it. Give her a massage and a Warm bath and like someone to watch her kids while she takes a nap and doesn't have to work in the fields all day. Yes. Because even when she was like at the peak of her hoax, like even when it was like quote unquote working, what that meant is she was being examined in probably a very violating way by 10 male strangers. So this wasn't even a fun hoax. No, it was physically uncomfortable, probably hurt a lot. A miracle she didn't die of an infection. And probably very violating for. And I hate that she was manipulated by her husband and sister and mother in law who were all like, yeah, let's do it. It's bad. Yeah, downer of a hoax. There's actually a novel about this which I didn't read because while I was doing historical research, I didn't want to like read a novel and then get mixed up about anything that might not be real. But I have this book so I'm gonna read it now. It's called Mary Toft or the Rabbit Queen by Dexter Palmer. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna read it and I'll, I don't know, chat to you about it probably. Lizzie, maybe I'll post about it on the hoax Instagram account, which you should follow. Yes.

[Lizzie Logan]

And little behind the scenes information. This is the first episode that we're recording since we've been like posting on the host hoax Instagram.

[Dana Schwartz]

We're live, it's happening and you guys.

[Lizzie Logan]

Have been so fun to interact with. So please continue like tagging us and dming us and like commenting and posting on our stories. We're having so much fun talking to you guys.

[Dana Schwartz]

And also our email address is just hoaxthepodcastmail.com our Instagram is Hoax the podcast. Message us, interact with us. Let us know if you know anything about removing kittens.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yes. If you find any evidence of this Tumblr post that I saw 10 years ago, find it and send it to us.

[Dana Schwartz]

This is probably the most vagina heavy episode of hoax that we're going to do. But there's no guarantee about it.

[Lizzie Logan]

Absolutely no guarantee.

[Dana Schwartz]

Lizzie, where can the people find you?

[Lizzie Logan]

The people can find me on L, A Z Z Z Z A E L O G A N dot if you want to subscribe to my newsletter.

[Dana Schwartz]

It'S a really great newsletter. I love Lizzie substack.

[Lizzie Logan]

Thank you very much, Dana. Where can people find you?

[Dana Schwartz]

Follow me on Instagram Dana Schwartz with three Z's. Listen to Noble Blood. Additional show notes and sources are in the episode description. And please, if you are enjoying this podcast. Support us just by rating, reviewing, subscribing and sharing it with friends.

[Lizzie Logan]

Please do and please Hoax responsibly.

[Dana Schwartz]

Bye.

[Lizzie Logan]

Hoax is a production of iHeart podcasts. Our hosts are Dana Schwartz and Lizzie Logan. Our executive producers are Matt Frederick and Trevor Young with supervising producer Rima El Kayali and producers Gnomes Griffin and Jesse Funk. Our theme music was composed by Lane Montgomery. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening.

[Johnny Knoxville / Various Promo Voices]

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[Dana Schwartz]

What kind of man would let this happen to his family?

[Johnny Knoxville / Various Promo Voices]

Inspired by shocking actual events, I'm working.

[Dana Schwartz]

On a story about the Murdochs.

[Lizzie Logan]

Their abuses of power are playing out in real time.

[Johnny Knoxville / Various Promo Voices]

Starring Academy Award winner Patricia Arquette and Jason Clark.

[Dana Schwartz]

It's only cheating if you get caught.

[Johnny Knoxville / Various Promo Voices]

Hulu Original Series Murdoch Death in the Family New episodes Wednesdays on Hulu and Hulu on Disney for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.

[Commercial Voice]

The Chase Ink Business Premiere card is made for people who make things happen. Like me.

[Dana Schwartz]

I'm Sam, founder and CEO of Manifest.

[Commercial Voice]

A product design company that makes everyday products design Smarter.

[Dana Schwartz]

I get 2.5% cash back on purchases of $5,000 or more, plus unlimited 2% cash back on all other purchases, which.

[Commercial Voice]

Helps us make more smart ideas into a brilliant reality.

[Johnny Knoxville / Various Promo Voices]

The Inc. Business Premier Card Chase for Business make more of what's yours. Real business owner compensated for their participation cards issued by JPMorgan Chase bank and a member FDIC. Subject to credit approval. Terms apply.

[iHeart Podcast Announcer]

This is an iHeart podcast.