Edward Mordake is an Englishman who allegedly lived in the 19th century. I remember it thanks to a highly unusual ugliness - there was a second face on the back of Mordraik's head.
Relatively little information has survived on Edward Mordrake; neither the date of his birth nor the date of his death are known for certain. It is believed that Mordrake came from a very influential family - one of the noblest names in England at that time. The heir of a kind, Mordraik was very worthy - he was in all respects a talented and enlightened young man, played music well and studied with dignity.
Unfortunately, congenital deformity made Edward's life difficult; despite the fact that from the front he looked pretty decent, a glance from the side or from behind immediately scared people away from him - for on the back of Mordraik's head was a second face.
According to some versions of Mordrake's story, this face was that of a beautiful girl; this, however, is most likely just a poeticized myth. It is difficult to establish exactly what exactly Mordrake suffered from, but his second person is most likely an example of a parasitic twin; such twins always belong to the same sex as their 'originals'.
The parasitic twin is extremely rare, but not entirely unknown. Conception is actually not as difficult as it might seem; alas, often only one embryo survives before giving birth as such - it manages to absorb its weaker brother in the womb. By the way, it was such a twin that became the basis of the plot of one of Stephen King's novels.
Sometimes, however, the takeover is incomplete - and that's when people like Ed Mordrake appear to the world.
It's not hard to imagine how much the second person made life difficult for Mordrake. The same myths attributed to Edward's twin a certain - and extremely insidious - intelligence; it is argued that the second face of Mordraik could smile, see off passers-by with his eyes, and even utter some kind of inarticulate speech. Mordrake begged the doctors to rid him of his twin - he allegedly whispered something satanic to him at night; alas, even in our time, doctors are not able to carry out such an operation with guaranteed success.
Promotional video:
Almost all versions of Mordraik's story end the same - at 23, Edward, who has lost all hope, takes his own life. The details of the suicide are somewhat different - in some legends Mordraik takes poison, in others - he shoots a bullet between the eyes of his second person. In any case, all the legends mention Mordrake's farewell note; in it, he asks to destroy the second person before the funeral - so that at least in the grave it would stop its nightmarish whispers.
Obviously, the story of Mordraik - if such a person ever existed - has come down to us in a form that is pretty poetic; for some time it was generally believed that Edward Mordrake was just a terrible tale of the last century.
Now some part of the legend can still be explained from a scientific point of view; science knows other examples of similar congenital deformities. In the late 70s and early 80s, the attention of many doctors was riveted on Chang Tzu Ping - this Chinese man was also born two-faced. His second face consisted of a mouth, several teeth, a piece of scalp, a badly deformed tongue, and sketches of other features.
Of course, the face did not show any signs of independent thinking - even his lips moved only and simultaneously with Ping's 'main' lips. It is believed that American doctors were able to remove Chang's second face; however, there is not so much really convincing evidence of this.
Chang Tzu Ping