All dungeon, no dragons

Saturday we went on a day trip to Warwick Castle, which is situated on the River Avon. 

(Yes, that's Billy Shakes' river.) 

Like all of the other castles I've been to, this one had a gift shop that rivaled those at Disneyland, selling mounds and mounds of crap to eager tourists who cannot live without another mug, keychain and decorative spoons emblazoned with an image or word to remind them of the unique experience of visiting a commodified castle... 

I've sort of gotten to the point where I think: another day, another castle. But I guess that is due to that fact that my mind still envisions castles as these magical fortresses where princesses spend their days traversing the grounds in ball gowns made of yards and yards of silk picking bouquets of wildflowers for their mothers and friends. 

Castles are really nothing like that. 

I find them gaudy. And cold. With lots of gold paint. On furniture, or door frames. 

There are no princesses, or wildflowers. 

In this particular castle, instead I found a dungeon. 

This wasn't really an act of discovery. I didn't turn the wrong way down a dark corridor with a torch in hand. (As cool as that would have been.) There was a sign, and an arrow. The sign read, "dungeon," the arrow pointed down a narrow passageway with uneven stairs leading visitors underground. 

Bizarre is the best way to describe this place. 

I found myself in this small room made of stone. It was a little bit bigger than my dorm room, but not by much. There were no windows. And the room was empty except for two cages hanging from the ceiling. One, which was in a corner and illuminated by a dimmed florescent type light, looked like an oversized bird cage. The second was the more disturbing of the two. 

When I first walked into this room the first thing that came to my mind was the idea of space. About inhabiting space. When I walked into that room I was standing on stones that we once covered in blood, and feces, and I don't even want to think about what else. I was standing in the place where a savage guard, or sniveling prisoner might once have stood. I was breathing in air that occupied a space once rank and hot and sticky with dirt and savagery. 

And then I looked up and over and saw that cage. The second cage. I don't know if this fixture was an original. I certainly hope it was a replica. 

It was shaped like a human body. Image a body suit made out of metal bars with arm and leg holes that come half way down the limbs so that elbows and knees can move freely. This was the second cage suspended from the ceiling. 

On the wall below it, a plaque explained its use. Apparently, prisoners were put into this contraption. They were left here until their decomposed bodies fell out of it on their own. 

This was the space I was occupying. 

A young family was also in this room with me. Mother, father, baby and little boy. He might have been 5 or 6. He asked his dad what the body cage was used for. His father told him that it was used for people who were very naughty in the olden times. That comment, who said it, who was meant to hear it, all of it, made the experience of being in that room even more weird than it already was.