Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio and Grim and Myelt from Aaron Manky.

Listener discretion is advised.

Let's imagine for a moment that you're spending an afternoon in London.

And why not?

Let's make it one of those perfect days at the beginning of winter,

right when it starts to snow, but the snow is still new and white and hasn't gone muddy brown in the streets yet.

You look at your watch, or I suppose your phone, and you see that you have a few hours before you're scheduled to meet a friend in a pub where you'll sit by a fireplace drinking mold wine.

And so to kill the time before your perfect English evening, and to lessen the chill just starting in your toes,

you dip through the beautiful ornate stone entranceway to the Victoria and Albert Museum on Cromwell Road.

The V&A Museum has an eclectic but gorgeous permanent collection, showcasing objects from across centuries.

One exhibit has theatrical costumes from decades of shows.

There are robes in McKellenware, performing Shakespeare, an original puppet from the London production of Warhorse.

One room is dedicated exclusively to cartoons or designs for tapestries from the Renaissance Master Raphael.

But a slightly less showy room, if you turned left walking through the main hallway, would bring you to room 41,

in which the museum houses its artifacts from South Asia, and in which you'd see what is, in my estimation,

one of the most interesting single objects, on display in the entire museum.

In the center of room 41, behind a protective glass wall, stands an artifact called Tipu's Tiger.

It's a carved wood-integer from the 1700s, almost life-sized, nearly six feet long.

The tiger is beautifully painted, with pattern stripes in black and gold that look almost like paisley.

A hidden compartment on the side of the tiger reveals a small organ that's still playable with keys.

Beneath the tiger is a second wooden figure.

It's a man, being maltedeth by the tiger.

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