Edward Mordake (sometimes spelled Mordrake) is the
apocryphal subject of an
urban legend
An urban legend (sometimes contemporary legend, modern legend, urban myth, or urban tale) is a genre of folklore comprising stories or fallacious claims circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or a family m ...
who was born in the 19th century as the heir to an
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
peerage with a face at the back of his head.
According to legend, the face could whisper, laugh or cry. Mordake repeatedly begged doctors to remove it, claiming it whispered bad things to him at night. Mordake committed suicide at the age of 23.
Description
An account described Mordake's figure as one with "remarkable grace" and with a face similar to that of an
Antinous. The second face on the back of Mordake's supposedly femalereportedly had a pair of eyes and a mouth that drooled. The duplicate face could not see, eat, or speak, but was said to "sneer while Mordake was happy" and "smile while Mordake was weeping".
According to legend, Mordake repeatedly begged doctors to have his "demon face" removed, claiming that at night it whispered things that "one would only speak about in hell", but no doctor would attempt it. This then led to Mordake secluding himself in a room before deciding to take his own life at the age of 22.
An account of Mordake's story was detailed in ''Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine'':
Earliest reference
The first known description of Mordake is found in an 1895 article in ''
The Boston Post
''The Boston Post'' was a daily newspaper in New England for over a hundred years before it folded in 1956. The ''Post'' was founded in November 1831 by two prominent Boston businessmen, Charles G. Greene and William Beals.
Edwin Grozier bough ...
'' authored by fiction writer Charles Lotin Hildreth. The article describes a number of cases of what Hildreth refers to as "human freaks", including a woman who had the tail of a fish, a man with the body of a spider, a man who was half-crab, and Edward Mordake. Hildreth claimed to have found these cases described in old reports of the "Royal Scientific Society". According to an article in ''
USA Today
''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgi ...
'', the only known "Royal Scientific Society" was founded in 1970 by Jordanian monarchs.
Nothing could be found in the records of the similarly named
Royal Society of London
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
.
Like many
publications of the time, Hildreth's article was not factual, and was likely published by the newspaper to increase reader interest.
''Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine''
The 1896 medical encyclopedia ''Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine'', co-authored by Dr.
George M. Gould and Dr. David L. Pyle, included an account of Mordake. The account was copied directly from Hildreth's article, and was credited only to a "lay source". The encyclopedia described the basic morphology of Mordake's condition, but it provided no medical diagnosis for the rare deformity. An explanation for the birth defect may have been a form of
craniopagus parasiticus
Craniopagus parasiticus is an extremely rare type of parasitic twinning occurring in about 2 to 3 of 5,000,000 births. In craniopagus parasiticus, a parasitic twin head with an undeveloped body is attached to the head of a developed twin. Fewer t ...
(a parasitic twin head with an undeveloped body),
a form of
diprosopus
Diprosopus ( el, διπρόσωπος, "two-faced", from , , "two" and , euter "face", "person"; with Latin ending), also known as craniofacial duplication (cranio- from Greek , "skull", the other parts Latin), is an extremely rare congenital di ...
(bifurcated craniofacial duplication), or an extreme form of
parasitic twin
A parasitic twin, also known as an asymmetrical or unequal conjoined twin, is the result of the processes that also produce vanishing twins and conjoined twins, and may represent a continuum between the two. Parasitic twins occur when a twin embr ...
(an unequal conjoined twin).
See also
*
Craniopagus parasiticus
Craniopagus parasiticus is an extremely rare type of parasitic twinning occurring in about 2 to 3 of 5,000,000 births. In craniopagus parasiticus, a parasitic twin head with an undeveloped body is attached to the head of a developed twin. Fewer t ...
*
Diprosopus
Diprosopus ( el, διπρόσωπος, "two-faced", from , , "two" and , euter "face", "person"; with Latin ending), also known as craniofacial duplication (cranio- from Greek , "skull", the other parts Latin), is an extremely rare congenital di ...
*
Futakuchi-onna
A is a type of yōkai or Japanese monster. They are characterized by their two mouths – a normal one located on her face and a second one on the back of the head beneath the hair. There, the woman's skull splits apart, forming lips, teeth ...
*
Janus
*
Polycephaly
Polycephaly is the condition of having more than one head. The term is derived from the Greek stems ''poly'' (Greek: "πολύ") meaning "many" and ''kephalē'' (Greek: "κεφαλή") meaning "head". A polycephalic organism may be thought o ...
*
Pasqual Piñón
*
''Malignant'' (2021 film)
References
External links
*
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*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mordake, Edward
Fictional English people
Fictional nobility
Fictional suicides
Legendary creatures with supernumerary body parts
Urban legends
Parasitic twinning in culture