In February, Thrill Kill Jill and her husband Tyler Fyre – AKA the Lucky Daredevil Thrillshow – were driving to Detroit to perform at the Motor City Tattoo Expo, when a winter storm hit. Jill was five and a half months pregnant, and became worried about her safety as snow caused white-out road conditions.

“I was afraid for my unborn child,” Jill says. “But once we got to the tattoo convention, I thought, ‘Phew, the easy part is here.’” Despite her understandable fears on the road, Jill was not your average mum-to-be. The “easy part” started with swallowing a two-foot long, one-inch wide stainless steel sword. “We pulled back on the larger one because of the baby in her belly,” Tyler points out. Dressed in a red satin full-length fish tail dress accentuating her belly bump, she smiled, lubricated the length of the blade across her red lips, tilted her head back, and dropped it down her throat.

It looked as if it’d stab right into the unborn baby.

At first, the audience weren’t quite sure of what they were seeing. Was Jill really pregnant? Was she really swallowing a sword? Jill changed into a red-and-silver belly dancing costume, exposing her midriff – the left side of which is guarded by a tattoo of large spider-woman in a web. Then she danced with a nine-foot Burmese python and, by the end of the show, she was standing in front of a board while Tyler hurled knives around her.

It was clear to everyone that Jill really was performing while expecting a baby.

“You should have seen the look on people’s faces – they didn’t know what to think,” Jill says. “A woman said to me, ‘How could you let him throw knives at you?’ First of all, it was around me, not at me. It’s a big difference – I didn’t think twice. And the sword? I wasn’t concerned. But that blizzard was terrifying.”

In fact, Jill almost seemed more comfortable swallowing the sword while pregnant. Normally she’d swallow while wearing a corset, which made the stunt more difficult. “Without it, I felt free – except for the weight of the child inside me,” she explains. “It seemed natural. I didn’t notice anything different and the sword wasn’t going to the part of my body that was changing.”

CHILD'S PLAY

Jill met Tyler in 2005. She saw him performing with a show called Burlesque-A-Pades, while she was scouting for talent for a new sideshow performance venue called the Palace Of Wonders, in Washington DC. After an initial attraction, Tyler flew back to DC during every break on his tour.

“Sometimes I’d go back for hours,” he says. “Eventually we decided to just spend all of our time together.”

Jill “wanted to be in the show”, so she started sword swallowing in 2007, and the art came to her easily. While Jill estimates it took her about three months to learn swallowing, with Tyler as her teacher, Tyler admits it took him nearly three years to feel comfortable with the art. “I’ve never seen someone take to it so quickly – it almost made me mad,” he says.

Obstetricians would’ve disapproved of inserting a sword into the body, so Jill didn’t seek advice during her pregnancy. Instead, she spoke with other sword swallowers she respects, and friends who could tell her how her body would change. But despite her confidence – and an injury-free history – there’s always an element of danger with what Jill does.

She says her pregnancy meant her stomach shifted out of the way, which eliminated the risk of poking holes in it, but she could’ve still punctured her oesophagus. “I had to navigate the sword down a soft fleshy tube without scraping the side,” she explains.

Tyler was fully supportive of Jill’s act, and their parents, while concerned, didn’t try to stop Jill from performing. “They understand our hopes and our dreams – they’ve always respected that,” she says.

LABOUR OF LOVE

Pursuing her ambitions while pregnant means Jill has become part of sword swallowing’s 4,000-year-old history. Fakirs and shaman priests in India are considered to be the first sword swallowers – self-taught in an effort to display invulnerability, power, and a connection with the gods. Eventually, the stunt made its way across Europe and China and became a form of entertainment during the Middle Ages. By the late 19th century, it found a home in the world of sideshows where it’s still seen today.

According to Sword Swallowers Association International, there are less than a few dozen professional sword swallowers currently performing. Over the years, these artists have swallowed multiple swords simultaneously, giant hedge clippers, serrated-edge saws, giant screwdrivers, neon tubes, toilet plungers and other long, dangerous items. But, as James Taylor – sideshow historian and publisher of journal Shocked & Amazed – notes: “Sword swallowing while pregnant, and while that far along, is a first as far as the historical record’s concerned.”

FAMILY FREAKSHOW

Jill stopped performing in April to make sure she got enough rest before the birth. She started working at a tattoo shop’s front desk, while Tyler took on a gig as a cable technician. But once their baby, Hank Lightning, was born on 4 July, preparations began to bring the Lucky Daredevil Thrillshow back. Jill hopes to fit in her costumes and perform within a few months, and Hank will be right there with them.

“We didn’t get pregnant by accident,” Tyler says. “We hope Hank will be part of the show as a child, until he’s 18, and then hopefully after.”

Jill reckons it’s a perfectly logical life for a child born to a couple who perform in a sideshow.

“Some people think it’s cruel to get Hank involved, but what about a kid born on a farm? They milk cows,” Jill says, justifying Hank’s future. “This kid has been born into a stunt show. We’re not expecting him to swallow swords. That’s a little difficult for a child to comprehend.”

“But he will spend time travelling with us,” Tyler adds. “It’s the family business.”

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