On Friday, Garett and I went to the Foundling Hospital in London, which is a home where poor mothers gave away their children during the 18th and 19th centuries. The children would be then fed and cared for until they were old enough to work–perhaps at age 14 or thereabouts.

The procedure was as follows: A mother would bring her child and, if the child were healthy, she would be asked to pick a ball out of bag. If the ball was white, the child would be admitted to the hospital; if it was black, the child would be turned away; if it was red, the child would be put on a sort of waiting list, in case any of the other children were rejected due to health or other issues.

It was founded because, according to the information inside, children born to unwed mothers in the 18th century had a 1 in 20 chance of survival. 1 in 20. There were abandoned children all over London. So horrific.

If their circumstances changed, the mothers could come back and get their children later so they would leave them with tokens and notes that would help prove their parentage. Here are a few of them.

To protect the mother’s identity, the children would be given new names. It must have been hard to come up with them after adopting so many children, hence resorting to  job-related last names.

We traveled to Cardiff on Saturday and on Sunday we visited Cardiff Castle. The name for Wales in Welsh is Cymru which just sounds insanely mythic. That, combined with their dragon flag and their unbelievable language, makes the country seem like it could be straight from a fantasy novel. If you don’t believe me about the language being kind of insane, here is famously the name of one of their cities in Welsh:

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.

According to Wikipedia the name means “St Mary’s church in the hollow of the white hazel near to the fierce whirlpool of St Tysilio of the red cave” in Welsh. Tysilio of the Red Cave–that could be the beginning of a series of fantasy books. So cool.

Cardiff is a bit grittier than I imagined, but it does have a fantasy worthy castle in the middle of it. It was owned by the Bute family, who became hella rich in the 19th century because of the coal in the hills. According to our tour guide, they were estimated to be the richest people in the world at some point or other.

The inside of the castle was very colorful–no tasteful gray walls or Scandinavian simplicity here. Every single inch was covered in stories, people, references, metaphors, and languages. You could almost feel the erudition slapping you in the face.

The 5 ‘ancient’ languages are represented below: Greek, Hebrew, Assyrian, Hieroglyphics, and Runic. Notice Latin isn’t there. That’s because it’s eternal, yo.

The clock tower room with different representations of time and the seasons. Here we see them harvesting apples signifying autumn.

Here the sun is rising on the East side of the room. Those birds around the figure are all different species done in extraordinary detail.

The children’s room with illustrations of fairy tales and stories on the walls. A rather barbaric Jack and the Giant.

Little Red Riding Hood, somewhat bizarrely riding the wolf. Perhaps they’d read a different version.

A garden inspired by a visit to Pompeii and also the Bible. I’m not sure they succeeded with the melding of the styles.

A whimsical servant button–I don’t know what these are called but they are usually rope pulls, I think. Anyway, you press the acorn in the monkey’s mouth and it rings the help.

Here are Garett and I at the harbor in Cardiff–the building behind us in red is the building for the Welsh parliament. It’s entire made of terracotta.