Photos from our harrowing adventure at Castle Helmond
Blazing Reader,
For Father's Day, my son Jonah took us out to Helmond Castle — a square medieval castle in the city of Helmond (near where we live in the Dutch province of South Brabant). It's my first time visiting a castle's interior (Toronto's Casa Loma doesn't really count).
Here is a 17th-century print of the 14th-century castle, followed by many photos of our 21st-century visit (where things quickly went awry, after we offended the king of the castle)...
400 years later, here are (left to right) my son Jonah, step-son Kevin and wife Ina, greeting the heron that guards the castle...
Upon entering, we found this fine knight, offering more menacing protection than the heron...
Kevin advised me that kings and princes spent most of their time in castles gazing woefully out the window, contemplating life, looking grave and watching for an attacking army. Here he is demonstrating the royal pastime...
Here's me giving it a try...
Here's the moat that we were looking at. It's a first protection against the invading army we are awaiting to break up the monotony of castle life...
And here's Kevin pretending to be one of the servants, pretending to be the king, staring out the cellar window...
Tired of staring out windows, we all decided to have a go sitting in the king's throne...
The king didn't mind Kevin sitting in his throne at all and knighted him Sir Kevin of Woeful Gaze...
...and appointed him mayor of Helmond...
The king was pretty upset with Ina sitting in his throne, being a woman and all, and had her put in the stocks for forty days and forty nights...
The king showed mercy on Jonah. Instead of beheading him, he sentenced him to forty days and forty nights of studying the shields of Van Berlaer, Van Cortenbach, Van Arberg and Wesselman van Helmond...
He then gave him a gauntlet and a helmet (but no sword) and told him he'd be using his white cane to guard the castle from those attacking armies (that we'd all been watching for at the windows)...
As protection, the king gave Jonah this chain mail made out of pop can tabs...
The king, however, showed little mercy on me (being Father's Day and all). He sentenced me down to the dungeons (where there was this large skeleton)...
...and had me shackled up in a ball and chain for forty days and forty nights...
After which, the king called me to his throne room, where he was direct and to the point...
Yeah, that hurt a bit. Still stings, actually.
John C.A. Manley
PS Most of what I described above was a work of satirical fiction ("based on a true story"). If you enjoyed it, then you'll probably enjoy my novels.
PPS For more photos from my life in the Netherlands, head on over here.
John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona, All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of philosophical fiction that are "so completely engaging that you find yourself alternately laughing, gasping, hanging on for dear life." Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber.
