Lure of the Fox: Oubliette

"Oubliette".

From the French word "oublier" meaning "to forget"(side note: this is where we get the English word "oblivion").

"The Forgotten Place".

Sounds creepy, right?

What would you say if I told you that an oubliette is one of the cruelest types of medieval torture ever utilized?

And that this medieval torture gets it's time in the spotlight in "Lure of the Fox"?

Oubliettes are usually pit dungeons ten to fifteen feet underground(and those are the "shallow" ones) with only one entrance/exit, like a trapdoor, that can only be accessed with difficulty.

Sometimes, prisoners were lowered into it via rope or chains or whatever; other times they were thrown(literally), which resulted in awesome things like broken bones. So comfortable, right?

If you were lucky, they fed you.

Otherwise, you starved and died.

You couldn't stand in some of them either. The "spacious" ones are bell-jar shaped--for lack of a better description--with a shaft for lowering prisoners which then opened into a literal pit.

Others were the equivalent of sewer shafts(and sometimes, they even were old sewage and toilet shafts that were given new--job descriptions? Yeah, we'll call it that). These ones were so small that I could maybe crouch or squat if I wanted to. My six-foot-one brother on the other hand? Not so much. He'd have to stand.

Can you think of a better way to give a person claustrophobia?

Anybody every been to the Lava Tubes in Flagstaff?

Or Muddy Putty Cave in Utah before they had to close it?

Or Timpanogos Cave when they turn off the tour lights?

Or any place where you have to take flashlights, or head-lamps or whatever so you can see the hand in front of your face and the potential dangers beyond that?

You guys, when you're in these places and the lights go out, or your head-lamp batteries fail, it's dark. 

It. Is. So. Very. Very. Dark.  

Not haunted-house-dark.

Not movie-theatre-pre-movie or stage-theatre-pre-show-or-blackout-dark,

Not the-building-is-closed-or-electricity-failed-dark.

Not even the comfortable it's-nighttime-time-to-go-to-sleep-until-the-sun-comes-up-dark. 

You can't see the hand in front of your face.

You don't even know if your eyes are open.

Yeah. That's pretty dark.

And that kind of dark has heavy physical consequences.

        

From Lava River Cave in Flagstaff. I army-crawled through that. Oubliettes are that dark and some are that narrow. No joke.

Have you ever heard stories of old Hollywood where actors were told never to look into the klieg lights if they wanted to keep their sight? Well, the same warning should have been given to people thrown in an oubliette. Not that any captor was ever that thoughtful, but still. 

People can go blind if they stay in the dark too long. 

And oubliettes are dark. 

Sometimes, if prisoners were released or rescued, the retinas of their eyes were so weak that they were blind for the rest of their lives.

And because they're so far underground, oubliettes are cold. Like, between 35 and 45 degrees Fahrenheit. That's cold. And you've got nothing between you and the cold, so you start to shiver and very possibly develop hypothermia and die. Which would be awesome--said no prisoner ever. 

Wait, though, it gets worse.

Being alone is scary.

Being alone and cold is scary.

Being alone and cold and hungry is scary.

Being alone and cold and hungry and in the dark is scary.

But what if, on top of that, you started hearing voices?

Sounds like a horror film, right?

If your captors were particularly twisted, they'd also break you mentally. Not just by leaving you alone for days. They'd do other things too.

See, because of their shape, some oubliettes have really good acoustics. Anything from a shout to a whisper can be picked up and constantly echoed; and the echos get into prisoners' heads and drive them insane.

An oubliette is creepy.

It's dark and it's cold and most people who occupy the building that holds it have no idea it exists. This place has the power to destroy it's victims mentally, physically, and emotionally in a matter of days. People were thrown down there and left to be forgotten.

Sounds like something DeClaire and Malbete would love, right?

And they do. Oh, they do.

You want to know the most interesting discovery I made about oubliettes?

There's one in Nottingham.

I'm not kidding.

How cool is that?!