by Aaron Mahnke
Lurking behind these seemingly endless droughts have been excuses. More specifically, the curses. How else are we to explain such droughts, such logic-defying gaps on their scorecards? Of course both of those teams had to be cursed, right?
But the Curse of the Bambino and the Curse of the Billy Goat weren’t the first curses in history, and they were far from the last. And while some curses have been entertaining or even laughable, others have defied explanation long enough to make people wonder. Some, in fact, have even been deadly.
THE CURSE LESS TAKEN
The word “curse” comes from the Old English word curs. The original meaning isn’t clear, but one of the uses of the Old English word is to denote a path or a route. I’m no etymologist, but I think the word picture is actually pretty clear: life is like a journey. Sometimes we walk along the path of our choosing, and sometimes we’re pushed off and into the woods.
It’s in those moments of chaos, of the unexpected and the unfortunate, that we feel like we’ve lost control. It’s as if someone or something has knocked us off the path we were traveling. In those moments, it might be appropriate to say that we’ve been “cursed.”
Curses as a concept, though, have been around since the beginning of humanity. In the earliest examples, a curse was a punishment handed out by a deity to misbehaving or devious human beings. The story of Adam and Eve in the Christian Bible is full of curses, doled out after their disobedience to God’s instructions. Hard physical work, painful childbirth, and expulsion from paradise are all described as curses.
The Irish speak of curses as if they were birds. Once a curse is spoken aloud, they say, it can float around a place until it finds its target. If the intended receiver wasn’t in the room, a curse could drift around for up to seven years. Not aimlessly, though; a curse is like a heat-seeking missile, waiting until the moment when the person arrives.
In Scandinavia, curses are like bullets. A person might utter a curse at an enemy, but the curse can be turned back or returned to the speaker, who then suffers the effects of the curse. Think Harry Potter–style wand duels, if you will.
The Moors of the Middle Ages had a very interesting tradition involving curses. It was said that if a man followed a prescribed set of rules and requirements, he was allowed to ask others to help him with something important. If, after jumping through all of the correct hoops, his request for help was still refused, a curse was said to descend upon those who refused him. Not a specific curse he made up, but a general, societal curse, as if tradition itself were punishing the unhelpful people.
According to legend, the Celtic people of Europe used curses in a powerful way. If a tenant farmer was fired and evicted from the land he had been hired to work, he would quickly go and gather stones from all over the property. Then he would put these stones in a lit fireplace, fall on his knees, and pray.
What did he pray for, exactly? Well, he prayed that for as long as the stones remained unburned, every possible curse would descend upon his landlord, the landlord’s children, and all the generations after them. Then, rather than leave the stones in the fireplace where they could eventually become burned—thus ending the curses—he would gather them up and scatter them all around the countryside.
Curses have been there since the beginning, it seems. But over time, they have evolved to be more than just something you do to another person, as if they were weapons. Many of the stories that we tell on dark nights around campfires have more to do with the implications.
You see, sometimes the horrible tragedies of life refuse to be explained away without the mention of a deadly curse.
A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS
When Prince Amedeo of Savoy told his father in 1867 that he planned to marry Maria Vittoria dal Pozzo, his father was enraged. Sure, she was of noble birth, but she was no princess, and she certainly wasn’t worthy of the son of a king. He was said to have cursed their union.
On the morning of their wedding, Maria’s dressmaker committed suicide. Maria took the hint and found a different dress to wear. Later, as the bridal party made their way to the palace church in a grand procession, one of the military leaders fell off his horse and died right there in the street.
The wedding procession continued on, though, and finally reached the palace gates—only to find them shut. A quick inspection revealed the reason: the gatekeeper was found in the gatehouse, lying in a pool of his own blood.
The death toll continued. Immediately after the wedding, the best man shot himself in the head. The wedding party headed to the train station—perhaps in an effort to outrun the curse—but when they arrived, the man who had drafted their marriage contract had a stroke and died on the spot. He was soon followed by the stationmaster, who somehow got pulled under the royal train and was crushed to death.
The king apparently saw a pattern and recalled the entire party to the palace. While they were leaving the train, though, one of the noblemen fell beneath the same train car. A medallion on his chest, most likely a gift from the king, was pushed through his skin, stabbing him in the heart.
Maria was the final victim of the curse, they say. She died in childbirth at the age of twenty-nine.
Here’s another: Timur the Lame, or Tamerlane as he was known, was the great-great-grandson of Genghis Khan, taking the throne in 1369. He was a vicious Mongol warlord and was known for bloody military campaigns. He often built pyramids after his victories. Not with stone, mind you. No, he preferred to use the heads of the defeated army, sometimes tens of thousands of them.
He died in 1405, and I imagine more than a few people were elated at the news. He was buried in an area that we now know as Uzbekistan, and a large jade slab was placed over his tomb as a safeguard. The stone was inscribed with words of warning, though: “When I arise from the grave, the world will tremble.” Some reports say that another message referred to a “great battle” that would be unleashed should his grave be disturbed.
You see where this is going, right?
In 1941, Joseph Stalin sent a team of Soviet archaeologists to look for Timur’s tomb. When local Uzbek elders heard of the search and planned excavation, they spoke out in protest. They made reference to an old book that made it clear just how bad an idea it was to open the tomb. They spoke of a curse, but no one listened.
On June 21, 1941, the tomb of Tamerlane was opened and his skull was removed. The following day, Hitler’s forces crossed into the Soviet Union, beginning the largest German military operation of World War II. If that war had a “great battle,” this was it.
The body of Tamerlane was studied for over a year while the Soviet Union was torn apart and destroyed by Hitler’s army. All told, the Soviet Union lost 26.6 million men and women to the invasion, more than any country in human history.
It’s unclear why, but in November 1942 the Soviets decided to return Timur’s body to the tomb, complete with a proper Islamic burial. Days later, the German invasion was repelled at Stalingrad, finally pushing the invaders back to the west and marking a turning point in the war—a turning point, some say, that was caused by the lifting of the curse.
A SAINTLY CURSE
The idea of the curse is common throughout folklore, and many popular stories use it as a plot device. The cursed spinning wheel of Sleeping Beauty, Snow White’s cursed apple, and the cursed brothers of the Seven Ravens all come to mind. But there’s another example in Irish tradition that tops them all, however obscure it might be.
There’s an ancient Norse work called The King’s Mirror that tells a fascinating story about St. Patrick. Patrick, of course, was known for his work spreading Christianity throughout Ireland in the fifth century, but he apparently did not always meet with success on his travels.
According to the account, St. Patrick once visited a clan that lived in a southern kingdom of Ireland called Ossory. Like any other visit, Patrick’s mission was to bring his message of Christianity to the people there, but it appears that he struck out.
The Kin
g’s Mirror goes on to describe how the people of the clan made every effort they could to insult both Patrick and the God he represented. Patrick, to his credit, carried on and tried his best. He preached the same message he always did, and followed the same protocol, meeting with the clan in their place of assembly. But the people there wouldn’t hear him out.
Instead, they did something that might seem incredibly odd to our modern ears: they howled like wolves. It’s not that they laughed at him and it happened to sound like howling. These people literally howled at St. Patrick.
Their reason was logical: the totem—or spirit animal—for this clan happened to be the wolf. To them, they were just responding to the message of an outside deity with the sounds of their own.
Now, this was pretty unheard of for St. Patrick. And the fact that this event was recorded in a Norse history book highlights just how remarkable it was. But even more unusual was Patrick’s response to this stubborn, insulting clan.
Clearly upset, Patrick stopped speaking and began to pray. He asked God to punish the people of the village for their stubbornness. He wasn’t specific, but he asked for some form of affliction that would be communal, that would carry on through the generations as a constant reminder of their disobedience.
According to the story, God actually listened. It was said that the people of Ossory were forever cursed to become the very thing they worshiped: wolves. And this curse followed a very specific set of rules.
Every seven years, one couple from the village of Ossory would be transformed into wolves. They would be stuck in this form day and night, year after year, until the next couple took over, transforming into wolves themselves and freeing the couple before them.
Part of the curse was said to be how the people of Ossory maintained their human minds while in the form of a wolf. But although they thought and spoke as humans, they were equally bound to the cravings of their new form—specifically, the craving for human flesh. In this way, the curse affected everyone, from the man and woman transformed to the people around them who lived in constant fear of being attacked.
Ever since that day, so the legend goes, the people of Ossory have been cursed.
ANSWERS AND QUESTIONS
There’s media hype, and then there’s grasping at straws. For some people, declaring someone or something to be cursed adds an air of mystery and drama. It’s the sexy bit, and sex sells, right? For example, the Kennedy family story is sad and tragic, but when we add a dash of curse, we elevate it to near mythic proportions.
Other people, though, really do believe. Either they’ve experienced the sting of unexplainable misfortune or they’ve watched the lives of people around them crumble for no discernible reason. The human mind wants answers. It demands them. It seeks them out. People love stories, but only the ones with closure. That’s what curses offer us.
At the end of the day, curses help us make sense of a thing, person, or place that seems to be haunted by misfortune. They act like a walking stick for people who are having a difficult time staying on the path. They prop us up and help us make sense of life.
I can imagine that life in sixth-century Ireland was incredibly difficult. And it would make sense that eventually someone would begin to tell stories that tried to explain the harshness of that life. Stories about a curse, perhaps. When someone failed to return from battle, or a hunting trip, or even travel between villages, it was hard to not have all the answers. Stories about attacks by local werewolves certainly did their part in explaining these disappearances. But they were just stories, right?
Gerald of Wales was a twelfth-century historian who recorded something interesting. He had been sent to Ireland by King Henry II to record the area’s history. According to him, a local priest requested his company while he was there. This priest sat down and told Gerald an amazing tale.
According to the report, he had been traveling near the western border of County Meath, close to what would have been ancient Ossory, and had camped for the night in the woods. That night, with his fire burning low, someone approached from the darkness beyond the firelight and spoke to him.
Obviously, the priest was frightened, as he’d thought he was alone. But the voice of a man called out to him with great urgency. The man spoke of his wife, who was sick at home. He was worried, and wondered if this man of God might come and perform last rites for her.
Reluctantly, the priest agreed. He gathered up his belongings and followed the voice into the woods. They traveled a short distance until they came to a large, hollow tree. There the priest noticed two frightening things. First, there was something or someone lying inside the tree, presumably the sick wife. Second, though, he realized that the voice was coming not from a man at all, but from a wolf.
He was taken aback. How, he asked the wolf, was he able to speak like a man? The wolf’s answer was simple: centuries before, his people had been cursed by a traveling priest, forever doomed to become wolves.
The priest prayed over the man’s wife and tended to her illness. The couple was gone by morning, never to be seen again.
ASK ANYONE IN the mental health profession about full moons, and you’ll get a surprising answer, something that sounds incredibly like folklore and myth: the full moon has the power to bring out the crazy in many people.
We’ve believed this for a long time. We refer to unstable people as lunatics, a word that finds its roots in Latin. It’s built from the root word luna, which means “moon.” For centuries humans have operated under the conviction that certain phases in the lunar cycle can cause people to lose touch with reality.
Just ask the parents of a young child, and they’ll tell you tales of wild behavior and out-of-the-ordinary disobedience during particular phases of the moon. Science tells us that, just as the moon’s pull on the ocean creates tides that rise and fall in severity, so too does our planet’s first satellite tug on the water inside our bodies, changing our behavior.
Today when we talk about the full moon, we tend to joke about this insane, extraordinary behavior. But maybe we joke to avoid the deeper truth, an idea that we are both frightened and embarrassed to entertain. For most of us, you see, the full moon conjures up an image that is altogether unnatural and unbelievable.
That large, glowing perfect circle in the night sky makes us think of just one thing: werewolves.
A RICH PAST
Science has tried to explain our obsession with the werewolf many times over the years. One theory is a disease called hypertrichosis, also sometimes known as wolfitis. It is a condition of excessive, unusual body hair growth, oftentimes covering a person’s entire face. Think Michael J. Fox in Teen Wolf.
Psychologists actually had an official diagnosis in the the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders called clinical lycanthropy. It’s defined as a delusional syndrome in which the patient believes they can transform into an animal. Those changes take place only in their mind, of course.
But delusions have to start somewhere. Patients who believe they are Napoleon Bonaparte have some previous knowledge of who he was. I think it’s fair to assume that those who suffer from clinical lycanthropy have heard of werewolves before. It’s actually pretty easy to bump into the myth, thanks to modern popular culture. Werewolves have been featured in, or at least appeared in, close to a hundred Hollywood films since 1913.
One of the earliest mentions of something resembling the modern werewolf can be found in the two-thousand-year-old writings of the Roman poet Virgil. In his Eclogue IX, written in 40 BCE, he described a man named Moeris who could transform himself into a wolf using herbs and poisons.
About fifty years later, Gaius Petronius wrote a satirical novel called, appropriately, Satyricon (which I think is basically the equivalent of Stephen King writing a horror novel called Frighticon). In it, he tells the tale of a man named Niceros. In the story, Niceros was traveling with a friend when that friend suddenly took off his clothes, urinated in a circle, and transformed i
nto a wolf before running off toward a large field of sheep.
The next day, Niceros is told by the owner of the sheep that one of the shepherds stabbed a wolf in the neck with a pitchfork. Later that day, Niceros noticed his friend had a similar wound on his own neck.
In the Greek myth of the god Zeus and an Arcadian king named Lycaon, Zeus took on the form of a human traveler. At one point in his journey he visited Arcadia, and during his time in that country he visited their royal court. King Lycaon somehow recognized Zeus for who he truly was and tried, in true Greek form, of course, to kill him by serving him a meal of human flesh.
But Zeus was a smart guy, and he caught Lycaon in the act, throwing the mythological equivalent of a temper tantrum. He destroyed the palace, killed all fifty of the king’s sons with lightning bolts, and then cursed King Lycaon himself.
The punishment? Lycaon would be doomed to spend the rest of his life as a wolf, presumably because wolves were known for attacking and eating humans. Most scholars believe that it is this legend that gives birth to the term lycanthropy: lykos being the Greek word for “wolf,” and anthropos the word for “human.”
INTERNATIONAL RENOWN
Werewolves aren’t just a Greco-Roman thing, though. In the thirteenth century, the Norse recorded their mythological origins in something called the Volsunga Saga. Despite their culture being separated from the Greeks by thousands of miles and many centuries, there are tales of werewolves present there as well.