Monster Babies

We have finished with The Faerie Queene and are now starting on monsters. This weekend we read a packet with original pamphlets about monster babies. Each pamphalet contained many stories about babies being born as monsters and the first one had many cases of purely monster births such as snakes and half-human half-horse. The first pamphlet seemed to focus on a girl born with a pigs nose and how she lived her life. She ate like a pig, was well educated by her parents, and I think she even got married; I'm not sure about the marriage part because the pamphlet is hard to follow at times. I found it interesting that this publication tends to blame the deformities on witches and their evil curses. The other two pamphlets tend to blame the mothers, but this one blames external causes. The parents of the children here are all made out to be good gentlemen and gentlewomen who some unfortunate cross with a witch deformed their children.

The second pamphlet seems to be more a religious warning. The mother is this story gave birth to a headless baby because she said she would rather have a headless baby than a roundhead (Protestant). The pamphlet goes on and on about how the mother was a Paptist (Catholic), the mother's parents were Paptists, and the father was a Paptist. They are portrayed as wicked people who pick fights with good neighbors and who say horrible things to the good Protestant people. The blame for the headless baby lies solely on the mother in this case, unlike in the one before when it was blamed on the witches. This story seems to me to be more of a warning of the evils of Catholism than of a story about a monster birth. This pamphlet also contained a story from Chaucer (The Canterbury Tales). It was the story about a knight who rapped a girl and in exchange for not being killed he had a year (in this pamphlet three months) to find out what women valued most. An old ugly woman says she will tell him if he agrees to marry her and the knight agrees. He is saved from death but now has to marry the old woman, who turns out to be a young beautiful woman in disguise. Because he gave her power over him, which is the thing women want most, the spell making her a ugly old woman was broken. I found it strange that this story was included with the ones about monster babies, but I think it might have been almost hidden in there so that the people of the times could have access to literature. It's almost like a side story meant to teach and amuse, but to just be a side story to the main one the pamphlet is on.

The third pamphlet is also about religion. In this case the mother claimed to be the Holy Virgin and said that she sould give birth to the messiah. The woman is thrown in prison and when she has her baby it is stillborn and had the hand and feet like a toad. The mother killed herself in prison with a knife, and the story goes on to say that her parents were good people who should not be blamed for their daughter's sins. There are two more stories in this pamphlet; one warning not to work on the Sabbath and one warning against being an evil person to others. This pamphlet also seems to be one of religious warning and not one soley about moster babies. The men from the last two stories both died and they both forgot to ask God to have mercy on them and forgive them, which is pointed out so that the reader may not make the same mistake. The last thing this pamphlet talks about is how the mother who said she was the Holy Virgin was against the Protestant people. It seems to me that these pamphlets are more of a warning against people of any other faith besides Protestant and not really about the monster baby birthes. They may at first seem to be about the monster babies, but I think that may just be a ploy to get the people to read the pamphlet and then the religious aspect of the pamphlet shows up when the people are already reading.