Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh.
Speaker 1: There's Chuck Jerry's over to my right. That would make
Speaker 1: this Stuff you Should Know the most overheated, cramped, smelly,
Speaker 1: sweaty podcast on the market. I thought you can say overrated,
Speaker 1: no overheated, because we were number three today in front
Speaker 1: of Mr Ricky Javas right, and since I don't recognize
Speaker 1: Alvin and the Chipmunks as a podcast, we're technically number two,
Speaker 1: right behind Ira Glass. Oh yeah, big surprise. We love
Speaker 1: Ira Glass. Let's just say that because people are gonna say,
Speaker 1: why don't you like this American life? I know that's
Speaker 1: the that's the problem with having such a substantial library
Speaker 1: of podcast So when we go back, like fifty episodes
Speaker 1: and revisit a joke, only the really hardcore s Y
Speaker 1: s K listeners know what we're talking about. You know.
Speaker 1: The people send an email and they get fifty episodes
Speaker 1: back and they're like, h right, I wish I would
Speaker 1: have held my tongue. Can we get on with this? Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's do it. Chuck did you ever? Were you ever?
Speaker 1: In the he man arguably the most homo erotic action
Speaker 1: figure created that was I was a little old for that. Well,
Speaker 1: it was right in my wheelhouse, as you would say.
Speaker 1: And I had a little toy that I like to
Speaker 1: call Castle Gray School because that's what the manufacturers called it.
Speaker 1: Do you have you seen this? I've heard of it all.
Speaker 1: It was. It was pretty awesome. The cartoon was horrendous.
Speaker 1: Did you watch the cartoon? I was, I was too
Speaker 1: old for that. How many times do you have to
Speaker 1: go over my age? I don't know. Have you ever
Speaker 1: heard of the Base City Rollers? I know them personally. Um. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I had this little toy called Castle Gray School, and
Speaker 1: it was this big plastic castle and it was pretty awesome.
Speaker 1: It had embattlements, it had um tower, had towers, had
Speaker 1: it even had a little overhang hanging off the back
Speaker 1: um and then the the front entrance the tunnel was
Speaker 1: a mouth with fangs coming down. And it was just
Speaker 1: generally one of the cooler toys I own, to tell
Speaker 1: you the truth. And now that I've read how castles work,
Speaker 1: I could where I'd go back in time, stand next
Speaker 1: to my younger self and be like, this is the tower.
Speaker 1: This is Carl called the pork cullis, this is a
Speaker 1: murder hole, and don't start smoking. Yes, that's I would
Speaker 1: say that to young self. Oh my god, if there's
Speaker 1: one thing I could go back and change, well, if
Speaker 1: I had like three or four things I could go
Speaker 1: back and change, smoking would definitely be one of them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it'd be taller. Uh oh wait, things you can really change.
Speaker 1: I don't. Time travel is no effect on your height.
Speaker 1: I would tell myself to grow taller. Okay, just when
Speaker 1: I still have the chance. Yeah, So let's talk castles, Chuck, okay, Josh.
Speaker 1: The word castle, like everything almost it's Latin, comes from
Speaker 1: the word castell um, which means a fortified place. That's
Speaker 1: exactly what it is, and the French shortened it lazy
Speaker 1: French people that they are from castellum to castle it
Speaker 1: means the same thing. Uh. And castles are actually very
Speaker 1: specific buildings. There's very specific speed features to them that
Speaker 1: make a castle of castle um. They're generally European, although
Speaker 1: there are some castle castles found in like the Middle
Speaker 1: East in Japan, but for the most part they were
Speaker 1: European in origin. In Germany, ten thousand of them in
Speaker 1: Germany alone, and they only actually existed for about five
Speaker 1: hundred years. Are they only underwent construction for about five
Speaker 1: hundred years during the High Middle Ages from the tenth
Speaker 1: to fifteen centuries. Yeah. So let's talk about the history
Speaker 1: of castles, and and not just historic castles, but the
Speaker 1: beginning of castles. Where did they come from? Chuck? Well, Josh,
Speaker 1: they evolved from the ancient walled cities back in like
Speaker 1: Troy and Babylon and Jericho. They would have big walls
Speaker 1: around on their cities for fortification. So it of all
Speaker 1: from that into Uh. The first ones were called a
Speaker 1: grod I believe is how you pronounce that, or a groad,
Speaker 1: and that consisted of basically wooden and earthen walls and
Speaker 1: then a gate with a moat around it. And that
Speaker 1: would become one of the hallmarks of the castle was
Speaker 1: the moat. Yeah, you have to have a moat or
Speaker 1: else it's just not a castle. It depended on the terrain.
Speaker 1: Sometimes if you're on like a rocky peak, you didn't
Speaker 1: have a moat because you couldn't and you didn't need it.
Speaker 1: But most castles are known for having moats. Yeah. That's
Speaker 1: thank you for the correction, Chuck, love to be corrected. Uh,
Speaker 1: There's another kind of castle that um eventually became part
Speaker 1: of the modern and by modern I mean High Middle
Speaker 1: Ages castle called a bird Freed, which you may suspect
Speaker 1: as German, but it's actually based on a Roman design
Speaker 1: that they would use these watch towers along their frontier,
Speaker 1: and those became the towers of later castles. Uh right, Josh.
Speaker 1: I believe that brings us to number three, which was
Speaker 1: the Motte and Bailey castle. And that consisted of a
Speaker 1: mound which is the Mott, and that's within the open
Speaker 1: courtyard which was the bailey, and that, of course, as always,
Speaker 1: is enclosed by a wall and a fortified gate. That's
Speaker 1: the key. Right. So you put all these things together,
Speaker 1: fill them with bloodthirsty knights and pooping horses, and you
Speaker 1: have the castle as we as we recognize and love it,
Speaker 1: the whole property. Yeah. Okay, so Mr smarty pants, you
Speaker 1: don't always have to have a moat, right, but most
Speaker 1: of them did have modes, right, So you had a
Speaker 1: moat which is really just a ditch dug around the
Speaker 1: outer wall of the castle. Yeah. What I love about castles, dude,
Speaker 1: sorry to interrupt, is everything is so rudimentarily genius. He
Speaker 1: sounded like me just now. It was all just genius.
Speaker 1: But it was so basic. They were like, well, we
Speaker 1: don't people get in, so let's take a big ditch
Speaker 1: around it. Well, let's build a big door with a
Speaker 1: big brace behind it. Yeah. Yeah, and if you there
Speaker 1: seems to be a lot of um murderousness during this time.
Speaker 1: It was very violent time. Um, so the most of
Speaker 1: the technology and ingenuity was based towards effectively killing people
Speaker 1: in the most horrific ways you could imagine. Right, So
Speaker 1: the moat that was used to keep people out right,
Speaker 1: and if it were you could fill it with water.
Speaker 1: Everybody filled it with sewage human and otherwise. Right, you
Speaker 1: don't see that in the movie. No you don't, because
Speaker 1: I can you imagine how badly that smelled. Um. And
Speaker 1: if you had you could keep it dry, although again
Speaker 1: you would fill it with sewage anyway, and if you
Speaker 1: kept it dry likely you would um bury sharpened steaks
Speaker 1: coming out at all angles. So you could push people
Speaker 1: into it and be like sinauris sucker, That's what they
Speaker 1: would say in Japan. Yeah, so you got your moat,
Speaker 1: you got your drawbridge, which you know lower the drawbridge
Speaker 1: extends over the moat, you can get in and out
Speaker 1: of the castle, and you've got that. You have the
Speaker 1: outer walls, right, and the outer wall actually, um, all
Speaker 1: castles have outer wall, some have inner walls. We'll get
Speaker 1: to that in a second. But the outer walls are
Speaker 1: actually two walls, right, um. So you have the one
Speaker 1: wall and then a space and then another wall, and
Speaker 1: then in between the two walls you fill with you
Speaker 1: backfill with rubble or stone or gravel or something to
Speaker 1: really make these things just like brick houses right right.
Speaker 1: And then some castles even had an outer outer wall
Speaker 1: called a shield wall, which was even taller, right, so
Speaker 1: people could walk along the inside wall, right and not
Speaker 1: have their head lopped off with the flaming arrow exactly,
Speaker 1: which is true. They yeah, they did. That was a
Speaker 1: lot of things were made of wood, um, especially in
Speaker 1: the early days of castles, and this would would probably
Speaker 1: be pretty well, it's like a big tinder box is
Speaker 1: what you were walking around in, So flaming arrow goes
Speaker 1: a long way. Yeah, it's very effective. Right. There were
Speaker 1: also um overhangs that were initially made of wood that
Speaker 1: I found pretty cool. Remember I mentioned Castle Gray School
Speaker 1: had um a. Generally these things were called hoardings, and
Speaker 1: they would have um arrow loops, which are basically just
Speaker 1: narrow slits so you can shoot through right, and they
Speaker 1: would hang over the front of the castle, so when
Speaker 1: people were storming the front of the castle, um you
Speaker 1: could you could shoot them with arrows the arrow loops.
Speaker 1: But they also had the coolest sounding things of all time,
Speaker 1: murder holes. Murder holes were holes, but you could shoot
Speaker 1: arrows um. So basically, if you're standing on a hoarding,
Speaker 1: there are holes in the floor, so you could shoot arrows. Also,
Speaker 1: you could pour hot oil, hot metals, hot whatever exactly.
Speaker 1: And the way that the entrances were arranged the when
Speaker 1: you're walking in the entrance of the castle, right, you've
Speaker 1: crossed over the drawbridge and now you're walking in the tunnel.
Speaker 1: Um there's arrow loops on either side of you, and
Speaker 1: then above there's murder holes. So if you were able
Speaker 1: to breach the drawbridge and the gate, you were subject
Speaker 1: to having sorts of hot, horrible stuff poured on you
Speaker 1: and you were in big trouble, not fun. Uh. The
Speaker 1: other thing they had to for for defense and for protection.
Speaker 1: While defense is in defending yourself was the crenelation. Like
Speaker 1: you know, when you see the top of the tower
Speaker 1: and it's one block is higher, then the next block
Speaker 1: is low, the next block is higher. That was actually
Speaker 1: uh purposely done that way, so you could, you know,
Speaker 1: soldiers could hide behind those blocks, peek around the corner
Speaker 1: and fire and arrow, and then hide behind the tall
Speaker 1: block again. Right. And I would argue that crenelations are
Speaker 1: the most readily recognizable design of castle for sure. About
Speaker 1: you know, the little sand castle molds, even those have
Speaker 1: crenilations on them. If if they don't have the crenilations,
Speaker 1: it's really just a big rectangle, Chuck, you were talking about,
Speaker 1: um guys hiding behind the blocks of crenelation and then
Speaker 1: moving to the side and shooting an arrow. They also
Speaker 1: designed staircases in a clockwise circular fashion. Coolest fact of
Speaker 1: the show right here, Do you want to take your buddy?
Speaker 1: May I? Yes? Please? Okay? Uh, you're right clockwise while
Speaker 1: going up. This is because at the time soldiers were
Speaker 1: right handed. The fault with their right hand swung the
Speaker 1: sword of the right hand. Um, if they were left
Speaker 1: handed by nature, they were taught to fight with their
Speaker 1: right because why because left handed people were considered evil
Speaker 1: at the time. Actually, the word sinister means left handed,
Speaker 1: so weird, so they design it counterclockwise going up. So
Speaker 1: if you're flying up the stairs to go fight somebody,
Speaker 1: you had room on your right hand side to swing
Speaker 1: your weapon and it wouldn't hit the wall. Don That
Speaker 1: in That the coolest fact of the whole thing. It is.
Speaker 1: And also if you're running up the stairs and you're
Speaker 1: an archer, you can draw and you have plenty of
Speaker 1: room to draw an arrow and shoot it out of
Speaker 1: one of the arrow loops that too. Yeah, so Chuck,
Speaker 1: that's the outer wall. We've got the crenelations, we've got
Speaker 1: towers built into it, we have holdings in different variations
Speaker 1: on the holding right. Uh, and then you have the
Speaker 1: inner wall. Right inside the outer wall, you would have
Speaker 1: what's called a bailey, right, which is basically is a
Speaker 1: big open courtyard. So anytime you see nights jousting like
Speaker 1: the heart throb Heath Ledger in a Night's Tale r
Speaker 1: I P right um, what they where where that joust
Speaker 1: was taking place was actually inside the outside wall of
Speaker 1: the castle. Yeah, and here's the thing you want to
Speaker 1: We'll talk about the sieges later, but once you storm
Speaker 1: into the castle. It's kind of like, great, we're inside,
Speaker 1: but it's also like, oh boy, we're inside, because now
Speaker 1: you're trapped, and all the little dudes up there in
Speaker 1: the tower and on the walkways all of a sudden
Speaker 1: just turned around and start firing flaming arrows down at
Speaker 1: your head. Right, Because at the very least the castle
Speaker 1: would have an outer wall and then some sort of
Speaker 1: tower or inner fortification. A lot of castles actually had
Speaker 1: an outer wall, then the bailey, and then an inner wall,
Speaker 1: and then within that was the tower. So yeah, you
Speaker 1: were just your toast basically if you made it in
Speaker 1: and and you weren't, if you were feeling under the weather,
Speaker 1: that they that was the day you died. U the courtyard, Josh.
Speaker 1: They also use it as a marketplace ace, and they
Speaker 1: had festivals and fairs, they did soldier drilling, train horses.
Speaker 1: And then later once uh you know, castles later on
Speaker 1: became more for like the kings and the noblemen and
Speaker 1: less military in nature, and they were used for like
Speaker 1: gardens and fountains that kind of thing, right, And uh
Speaker 1: that when the nobleman actually lived in the castles, which
Speaker 1: they did, but for the most part, castles were originally
Speaker 1: made for military purposes, but then as the military technology advanced,
Speaker 1: castles became much less strong or able to withstand attacks.
Speaker 1: So the what was originally called the keep, actually what
Speaker 1: was originally called the Don john right became the keep,
Speaker 1: and the Jean or the Don Johnson it was usually
Speaker 1: pastel um the uh, that became the keep, and that's
Speaker 1: where the lord of the manner, the whoever owned the
Speaker 1: feudal surfs lived right. The other thing, because obviously you
Speaker 1: need a lot of people to keep up a castle,
Speaker 1: to work the kitchen, blacksmiths, carpenters. There were residential apartments inside, yeah,
Speaker 1: which you never really think about, you know, the fact
Speaker 1: that they had people living there on site. So it's
Speaker 1: sort of like a little live workplace scene way back
Speaker 1: in the Middle Ages. I just assumed that feudal lord
Speaker 1: slaughtered all the workers afterwards, exactly. Yeah, um the uh.
Speaker 1: They're also Chapels Chuck. And there's a castle in Scotland
Speaker 1: and the name escapes me right now, but it is
Speaker 1: supposedly the most haunted castle in the world and the
Speaker 1: reason why is one of the things that happened there
Speaker 1: was the feudal lord, the the person who owned the castle.
Speaker 1: His brother was saying mass in the chapel of the castle,
Speaker 1: and he came in and murdered his brother, beheaded him
Speaker 1: while he was saying mass. It's probably bad luck that,
Speaker 1: I don't think. I think running over gravestones is on
Speaker 1: par with that with your car. Yeah, it's pretty bad stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That chapels they had lived in priests many times because
Speaker 1: they went to church every day. Back then. They had
Speaker 1: the Great Hall inside the castle, which is what you
Speaker 1: you know when you see them drinking the meat and
Speaker 1: feasting at the big table. It's in the great hall.
Speaker 1: They had storage obviously for their food and uh, the
Speaker 1: horse food and all that kind of stuff. And little
Speaker 1: known fact inside the keep, most rooms were heated with
Speaker 1: a fireplace. Yeah, I saw that that was worthy of
Speaker 1: putting in here. I thought that was interesting, Chuck. One
Speaker 1: of the things that I hadn't thought of until I
Speaker 1: read the article. It makes complete sense, is that um
Speaker 1: castles needed to have a self sufficient water supply. So
Speaker 1: you had to have a well within the castle walls,
Speaker 1: right Why Well, because if you were trapped in there
Speaker 1: and we'll we'll get to the siege later on. Oh
Speaker 1: that was my segue into the seas. Well. You need
Speaker 1: to have your water because when people siege, they kind
Speaker 1: of basically surround you and say, no one's coming out
Speaker 1: to get anything, right for months long time, so you
Speaker 1: better have your water and your food. And they said
Speaker 1: it just like that. I think, Actually, I thought you're
Speaker 1: gonna mention the dungeon. That's what I didn't know. You're
Speaker 1: moving on. Well, yeah, the dungeon was originally up high
Speaker 1: when it was called the Don Johnson like you said, uh,
Speaker 1: and then that became the keep and the dungeon was
Speaker 1: moved down low down. So that was just another interesting
Speaker 1: fact I thought was dungeons used to be like in
Speaker 1: the upper reaches. Yeah, you always think of dungeon is
Speaker 1: below the ground, right, but they're harder to escape from exactly, dude, binga. Uh.
Speaker 1: The other thing they had, Josh, besides the wells because
Speaker 1: they needed to get their water, was they used cisterns
Speaker 1: to collect rainwater. Very green living type of thing going on, right,
Speaker 1: Very smart to do so though. Yeah. Um so, Chuck,
Speaker 1: we were talking about sieges, remember remember that. Yeah, back
Speaker 1: to sieges. So, uh, let's say that you are you
Speaker 1: having a standing army within your castle and you're a
Speaker 1: feudal lord, and may you may or may not have
Speaker 1: just murdered your brother who while he was saying mass.
Speaker 1: But otherwise everything's hunky dory. And then all of a
Speaker 1: sudden and in eating army from another nearby lord uh
Speaker 1: comes up. So you basically batten down the hatches. To
Speaker 1: use a metaphor that doesn't really make any sense whatsoever
Speaker 1: because it's nautical in nature. Um, but basically, you you
Speaker 1: you try to fight them off as much as possible.
Speaker 1: But also you've got all of your entrances closed and guarded,
Speaker 1: and you've got people ready with hot oil at the
Speaker 1: murder holes and all that, and like we said, this
Speaker 1: can last for months or years. Yeah, the impression I
Speaker 1: got was that a lot of times there was never
Speaker 1: any fighting going on when they did the surround and
Speaker 1: wait you out technique, right, and it actually led to
Speaker 1: the fewest casualties because a lot of times the invading
Speaker 1: army could negotiate the surrender of the castle. Well true,
Speaker 1: but the other side of the coin is, if you're
Speaker 1: going to be the army that surrounds the place, you
Speaker 1: gotta have your food and water too, right, So people
Speaker 1: inside the castle would use flaming arrows, catapults with flaming
Speaker 1: boulders maybe um, and shoot them into the countryside to
Speaker 1: set it on fire so the the invading army couldn't
Speaker 1: go get supplies from it, right yeah, and or for
Speaker 1: a dround and hunting that kind of stuff. But you
Speaker 1: could see some some invading army guy going the berries, right,
Speaker 1: they're on fire. That's what we counted on. Uh. The
Speaker 1: other cool thing too, if you were the invading army,
Speaker 1: you could catapult and this is not just for monty python.
Speaker 1: You could catapult like a dead cow, diseased cow, or
Speaker 1: diseased human or disease dead human into all I guess
Speaker 1: a disease live humans. All bets are off. I'm not
Speaker 1: dead yet, and you can catapult them over the wall
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, this bovine diseased animal is
Speaker 1: just like splattered in the middle of your keep and
Speaker 1: you're in big trouble. Yeah. Uh. And I think probably
Speaker 1: the other reason that laying siege to well just waiting
Speaker 1: that kind of siege um was favored. It was because
Speaker 1: the whole reason you're attacking this castle is probably get
Speaker 1: the castle, I would think, so, so you want as
Speaker 1: little damage under the castle as possible, because if it
Speaker 1: took five I think or two to ten years to
Speaker 1: build a castle, yeah, you don't want to wait that time.
Speaker 1: You just go wait for some other schmow to build
Speaker 1: his and invade it and then take it. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a good idea. Yeah, that's the broadwater way, right, Uh,
Speaker 1: one of the other ways, Josh. And this, this you
Speaker 1: would think is right out of the cartoons, but actually happened.
Speaker 1: To get into a castle as you would use a
Speaker 1: scaling ladder and you would put a big, tall ladder
Speaker 1: and you would climb up it. But just like in
Speaker 1: the cartoon, you could just go up there and push
Speaker 1: the ladder off. What's the dudes are on it if
Speaker 1: you were strong enough, or you could shoot the flaming
Speaker 1: arrows at their head, which is our our favorite technique,
Speaker 1: throw objects down, pour hot oil on them, same deal, right. Uh.
Speaker 1: To get around this, you could create a um what
Speaker 1: are they called chuck A siege tower. Yeah, build your
Speaker 1: own portable tower and you have some a bunch of
Speaker 1: soldiers inside and they are waiting while some other soldiers
Speaker 1: own on the ground or pushing this tower right up
Speaker 1: against well as close as they can get to the
Speaker 1: castle and then the door opens and guys come streaming out. Yeah, dude,
Speaker 1: they would lower a plank across, you know, like a
Speaker 1: pirate ship would do. And let's say when they pulled
Speaker 1: up to another pirate ship and they would storm that
Speaker 1: way from up top. Yeah. I think that appeared in
Speaker 1: like the the last Lord of the Rings movie. No,
Speaker 1: I don't even say that. Yeah, they use that device
Speaker 1: in the Last Lord of the Rings movie. But Josh,
Speaker 1: that is not my favorite. And when I was talking
Speaker 1: about rudimentary genius, the battering ram, Oh yeah, you build
Speaker 1: big door, we take a big pole smash door. You know.
Speaker 1: It's funny. The fuzz still use that today. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: those little metal things. I want one of those. You
Speaker 1: can get one. You can. Also you should probably dispose
Speaker 1: of the complimentary brass knuckles that come with your order there, right.
Speaker 1: Uh so, yeah, the battering ram obviously was It was
Speaker 1: a big tool for the invading army and um some
Speaker 1: of them were covered in like shields to prevent the
Speaker 1: flaming arrow from hitting their head. Some were wide open,
Speaker 1: and then to defend it once again, the rudimentary genius,
Speaker 1: they would like put they would slide like padding down
Speaker 1: in front of the door. They're like, oh, here they
Speaker 1: come in the battering and let's slew this mattress up
Speaker 1: against the door, which again I think that that's used
Speaker 1: in modern storming techniques by the fuzz and criminals. They
Speaker 1: would shoot flaming arrows into the door as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it was would so catch the door on fire
Speaker 1: and maybe you can weaken it a little bit. I
Speaker 1: think anytime there was wood, flaming arrows came into play, right,
Speaker 1: Ye always had to have a flaming arrow at the ready.
Speaker 1: Um castle's actually entered Decline, well, at least for military purposes,
Speaker 1: because of the invention of something we call the cannon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: once you had superior firepower, it doesn't matter how big
Speaker 1: your wall is exactly. Oh, we've left out one siege
Speaker 1: technique that I thought was awesome. The tunneling. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: gonna say that. They would this this sieging army would
Speaker 1: dig a tunnel all the way under the sele walls, right,
Speaker 1: and then they would they would use timber supports to
Speaker 1: hold the thing up while they were digging. When they
Speaker 1: finished digging, they would come back out set the tunnel
Speaker 1: on fire. The timber supports would burn and the the
Speaker 1: wall above would collapse because there was no longer any support.
Speaker 1: Pretty cool and that awesome. Yeah that I didn't It
Speaker 1: didn't make sense to me at first, but then I
Speaker 1: got it. So this is what you had to do
Speaker 1: to make a wall collapse. Then the cannon comes along
Speaker 1: and all you have to do is shoot a couple
Speaker 1: of cannonballs in the same place and then the wall collapses. Right,
Speaker 1: So castle's kind of fell out of use. But strangely enough,
Speaker 1: history repeated itself. It actually came full circle because remember
Speaker 1: we were talking about the the predecessors of castles were
Speaker 1: earthen walls and would and that's what we went back
Speaker 1: to because earthen walls, we found, could sustain the impact
Speaker 1: of a cannonball. So like colonial forts, yeah, yeah, they
Speaker 1: were made of earthen walls and wood, and they kind
Speaker 1: of replaced it, well, not replaced, but as far as
Speaker 1: a military outpost replaced the castle exactly. And they were
Speaker 1: also really speedy. Apparently the colonial army could put up
Speaker 1: a four in basically twenty four hours instead of two
Speaker 1: to ten years. Yeah or thirty years, right, Oh, is
Speaker 1: that how long some of them took? That's how long
Speaker 1: one in the in Arkansas was taking. Oh yeah, let's
Speaker 1: talk about this guy. This um. Another freshman named Michelle
Speaker 1: Guillot and mary Lynn Martin worked on a project in
Speaker 1: France called Project Guildon so out of my league with France,
Speaker 1: and they they are basically building a castle in the
Speaker 1: Bordeaux region of France using the old techniques. It started
Speaker 1: expected to take about twenty five years. And I went
Speaker 1: to the website day and it looks pretty rad. It
Speaker 1: looks pretty cool so far, it's like more than one
Speaker 1: third finished and it's open to the public. It's open
Speaker 1: well that's how they're paying for it with the tourist money. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is pretty cool. And they use all ancient tools,
Speaker 1: not ancient, but yeah ancient. No, not ancient, historic, but
Speaker 1: you could make the case that it's ancient, like wooden calipers. Um.
Speaker 1: They have a rope with knots tied in it to
Speaker 1: measure things out. They they're corrying the limestone by hand,
Speaker 1: carving the bricks by hand. They're transporting it from the
Speaker 1: quarry to the site by um horse, not just a horse,
Speaker 1: but a horse drawn wagon, right, And that's actually in
Speaker 1: the article. And then We got an email from Dana
Speaker 1: in Arkansas who said, who turned us onto this guy?
Speaker 1: Before I read the article. He's actually doing the same
Speaker 1: thing in Arkansas. Now, yeah, he said, I would build
Speaker 1: one in Bodo and Arkansas random. It is random, but
Speaker 1: it looks like it's gonna be awesome. Yeah, And it's
Speaker 1: called the Ozark Medieval Fortress and it opens actually in
Speaker 1: May of this year for the public, and I think
Speaker 1: for like fifty bucks, you can go see the thing
Speaker 1: in progress and once again, it's like a fifteen twenty
Speaker 1: year project. Or you can go to a major regional
Speaker 1: mall and have a nice chicken dinner at medieval times,
Speaker 1: or you could go see the first the Hearst Castle.
Speaker 1: They're like some rich dudes. Later on in the twentie century,
Speaker 1: he said, you know, I want Maya castle. What says
Speaker 1: that I own the labor of of America Castle. Herst
Speaker 1: Castle is awesome, though you ever been there? I haven't.
Speaker 1: I've seen pictures. Really cool. And there's a castle in
Speaker 1: my neighborhood. Yeah, there's a castle and Oakhurst. Have you
Speaker 1: ever seen it? Jerry? Yeah, it's like, you know, a
Speaker 1: five minute walked from my house. I walked by there
Speaker 1: with the dogs all the time. Sweet. It's like a
Speaker 1: you know, small house and it's got the tower and
Speaker 1: it's built up rock. I'll have to go check it out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I could probably find a picture of it. And there
Speaker 1: a castle that's uh a mausoleum that used to be
Speaker 1: in the one of the mall parking lots Evandale Mall
Speaker 1: parking lot. Oh now that that was. It's a walm
Speaker 1: right now. But it wasn't a castle, but it was
Speaker 1: a stone mausoleum. Okay, close enough. Yeah, I just this castle, No,
Speaker 1: curst is kind of cool. But every time I walk
Speaker 1: the dogs by there, some dude like pours hot oil
Speaker 1: on me. So that's kind of off putting. Nice one, Chuck.
Speaker 1: Anymore needs to be said after that, I don't think so.
Speaker 1: So if you want to learn more about castles and
Speaker 1: see some cool pictures of castles, actually there's a bunch
Speaker 1: left in this article we didn't cover. Um, you can
Speaker 1: type in castles in the handy search bar at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com, which means it's time for listeners.
Speaker 1: Mail Josh, I'm gonna call this uh email from Anna.
Speaker 1: She seems pretty cool and I think Anna is from
Speaker 1: there was there Colon email from Anna Colon. She seems
Speaker 1: pretty cool? Or was that? Or she seems pretty cool?
Speaker 1: She does? I think she's polish said that inherently makes
Speaker 1: her coola. Hi, Josh and Chuck, I have to thank
Speaker 1: you for the Hiccup podcast. Does it reminded me of
Speaker 1: how special I am in my twenty seven years on
Speaker 1: this planet. So she's either twenty seven or she's been
Speaker 1: living on Earth twenty seven years. She's Martian and she's forty. Uh.
Speaker 1: I've acquired exactly two superpowers, one of photographic olfactory memory,
Speaker 1: which I've had since childhood, and to the ability to
Speaker 1: cure my own hiccups just by thinking about them, which
Speaker 1: I perfected once I was of legal drinking age. The
Speaker 1: latter superpowers made for a hilarious party trick. Basically, if
Speaker 1: I get hiccups while imbibing of the sweet Sweet booze,
Speaker 1: That's how I knew we'd like her. All I have
Speaker 1: to do is pause for a second, concentrate on just
Speaker 1: the hiccups, and they go away within just a few moments.
Speaker 1: Of course, strangers at parties don't know this, so I
Speaker 1: can pretend that I am plagued by uncontrollable hiccups, And
Speaker 1: the only way I'll get cured is if, say, for instance,
Speaker 1: someone does a keg stand or a guy gives me
Speaker 1: a kiss. Pretty smart, wildly. Now, I know that with
Speaker 1: great power comes great responsibility, so I have resisted the
Speaker 1: temptation to use this ability for evil so far. My
Speaker 1: only hope is that I don't become so blinded with
Speaker 1: power that I turned to the dark side and use
Speaker 1: my hiccups to start a major war of influence on
Speaker 1: an election, or influence an election anyway. How about a
Speaker 1: future podcast on burp ing. Anna says that, and she
Speaker 1: says cuteous to Chuck for having good taste of music.
Speaker 1: Have you seen the Flaming Lips myself this year? And
Speaker 1: her email signature she's written before has a Charles Bukowski quote.
Speaker 1: It's the other way, and that she's cool. What is
Speaker 1: the best part of a writer is on paper? The
Speaker 1: other part is usually nonsense nice, and it's probably followed
Speaker 1: by a hiccup and a bourbon. Well thanks for that, Anna,
Speaker 1: we appreciate the email. It's pretty cool. Uh. If you
Speaker 1: have a special power, if you have a great Bukowski quote,
Speaker 1: or if you can tell us your age in Martian years.
Speaker 1: We want to hear it. Put it in an email,
Speaker 1: spank it on the bottom, and send it to stuff
Speaker 1: podcast at how stuff works dot com for more on
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out
Speaker 1: our blogs on the house stuff works dot com home page.
Speaker 1: Fo