As far as legends go, this woman's quite literally defied science and elevated her to celebrity status.
Bed-ridden Mary Thomas is said to have forgone food for four decades as she wasted away in bed weighing little more than a six-month-old baby.
Likened to a "breathing skeleton", poor Mary was taken ill as a teenager with a mystery illness which confined her to a bed for 70 years throughout the 18th and 19th centuries in the Welsh village of Llangelynnin.
