the.com/iron maiden

means A spiked, coffin-shaped torture cabinet from legend — gruesome in story, but almost entirely absent from real medieval record.

from The famous 'iron maiden' torture device is largely a myth: the cabinets displayed in museums were mostly assembled in the 1800s from various old parts and sold as sensational medieval relics. The name itself may echo German 'eiserne Jungfrau' ('iron virgin'), a term used for similar legendary devices, but the gruesome backstory was fattened up for Victorian-era shock tourism, not pulled from genuine torture-chamber records.