The Iron Maiden has a reputation as one of the most fearsome torture devices in history, though you shouldn’t believe every legend you hear.

Reputed to be a metal coffin with cruel spikes pointing inwards to skewer an unfortunate occupant, you would have to have really upset someone to end up inside one.

Whether they just wanted to give you a light impalement or decided you’d look better like a Swiss cheese tribute act, to end up inside one would be a hellish way to end your life.

It’d be a bad do all round, really, as you’d have to sympathise with the poor soul tasked with scrubbing your blood out of the Iron Maiden while not getting spiked themselves.

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The legend of the torture device has inspired numerous stories and even became the name of one of the most famous bands of all time.

A 19th century depiction of an Iron Maiden, with spikes long enough to kill but not long enough to kill quickly (The Print Collector/Getty Images)

The band actually used to be called Ash Mountain, but Steve Harris had seen the movie The Man In The Iron Mask and reckoned Iron Maiden was a much cooler thing to be called.

While the torture device has inspired many stories of pain and woe it’s also most likely inspired by a story itself, as it’s largely considered to be a myth.

According to history expert Dr Hannah Skoda, the Iron Maiden was first mentioned in 1802, centuries after the end of the medieval period came to a close.

There’s no physical evidence an Iron Maiden existed before the 19th century, but once they got famous from that first story people started making them and trying to flog them as genuine historical exhibits with plenty of success.

Medieval history expert Peter Konieczny explained that the stories of them being used to torture and kill people were most likely invented.

As for why you’d make up something as dreadful as an Iron Maiden, Konieczny told Live Science that many of these exaggerated and invented historical torture devices were conjured up centuries later by people who wanted to portray the past as a far more barbaric place.

As a simulation of an Iron Maiden in use demonstrates, it’d be a terrible thing to happen to someone and a cruel punishment to inflict.

The expert said: “You get that idea that people were much more savage in the Middle Ages, because they want to see themselves as less savage.

“It’s so much easier to pick on people who have been dead for 500 years.”

If there ever was any use of an actual Iron Maiden then it happened in times much more modern than medieval and we haven’t become much less savage than we like to think.