London’s Pig-Faced Urban Legend

Early modern fairy tale or urban legend? Who was London’s pig-faced lady and where did she come from?

‘A certaine relation of the hog-faced gentlewoman called Mistris Tannakin Skinker’, pamphlet, London, 1640. Wellcome Collection.

Her name was Tannakin Skinker. Or perhaps Miss Atkinson. Often, she had no name at all. But Londoners all agreed on one thing: somewhere in the city, a rich gentlewoman with the face of a sow was searching for a husband.

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