WEBVTT - The Curse 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.119 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuffworks 0:00:06.120 --> 0:00:14.600 dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:17.159 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:20.120 today I want to start off by telling a short story. 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:24.959 So in the second or third century CE in Roman Britain, 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:28.160 in the settlement that is now the English city of Leicester, 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:33.440 there was a Roman named Servandas, and Servanda's discovered that 0:00:33.600 --> 0:00:37.120 his cloak was missing. Not just missing, he knew it 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:40.600 had to have been stolen, but who stole it? Well, 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:42.479 he'd have to draw up a list of suspects. He 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:46.479 didn't know for sure. Now, Servandas was not plenty of 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:48.400 the younger. He was not an elite. He was not 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:51.320 some rich big shot with diarrhea of the pen. Hey, 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:53.960 we love plenty of this show, we do. But he 0:00:53.960 --> 0:00:57.320 he was originally who had diary of the pen Uh, 0:00:57.440 --> 0:01:00.000 not one of these people, one of these power people 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:03.520 who had their memoirs preserved for us. So how do 0:01:03.600 --> 0:01:07.080 we know about the stolen cloak of this common person, Servanda's. 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:11.080 Well we know about it because in the mid two thousand's, 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:13.920 researchers from the University of Lester working at a site 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:18.720 within Lester dug up a rectangular sheet of lead about 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:23.680 seven inches by three inches, carved with an inscription a curse. 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:27.679 It was an entreaty to a god to smite his 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:31.480 enemy for stealing from him, and it reads quote to 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:35.119 the god Maglus, I give the wrong doer who stole 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:38.640 the cloak of Servandas that he destroy him before the 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:42.880 ninth day, the person who stole the cloak of Servandas. 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:45.720 So you got a nine day timeline basically nine days 0:01:45.760 --> 0:01:47.600 to get me back the cloak, or may you be 0:01:47.720 --> 0:01:53.360 destroyed by Maglus. And then Servanda's helpfully supplies Maglus, which may, 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:56.760 I think it's been speculated be a Celtic word meaning prints, 0:01:56.760 --> 0:01:59.480 often names of gods or things that are just a 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:03.560 word for prince or king, like bay All or moluk Um. 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:07.840 But there there's a list of eighteen or nineteen possible subjects, 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:10.120 including people like and we don't know who these people are, 0:02:10.160 --> 0:02:15.320 but people like Sylvester and Germanis, and Riomandus and Regulus. 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:18.720 So who are these guys? No idea, but Servandas was 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:22.840 comfortable condemning them to the talents of Maglus with this curse. 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:24.840 Now I know some of you are probably wondering, well, 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:28.560 who stole the cloak? Who you know? Who is the thief? Here? 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:32.560 My question is was this a nice cloak? Was it 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:34.960 just was? Is that the thing? Was it just really nice? 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:39.160 Or is he just very spiteful over it's it's lost? Well, 0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:41.120 it could be those things, or it could be that 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:44.480 Servandas was very poor and could only afford one cloak, 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:47.280 and you know that that a cloak was a significant 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:51.240 possession to him, and so stealing a cloak from Servandas 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:54.040 in second or third century Roman Britain might be like 0:02:54.120 --> 0:02:57.560 stealing your car. Now he has time and energy to 0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:00.640 put into this whole curse business, though I'm I'm assuming 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:03.200 there's a fee associated with that. Well that's a good point, 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:05.160 and we'll come back to that in a minute. Yes, 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:08.400 you raise good questions. So today, obviously we're going to 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:12.560 be talking about curses, and Robert, I don't know about you, 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:16.639 but I love curse movies. I think like which is, 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:19.040 curse movies are really fun. They're one of my favorite 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:22.080 genres of horror. Like a witch puts a curse on 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:24.280 somebody and you've got to figure out what to do. 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:26.200 So in this case, you're talking about films where where 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:28.800 the protagonist is cursed and has to work their way 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:31.960 out of the curse. Yeah. Now there's a variation on 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:34.320 this that I don't like at all, which is like 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:37.040 the Thinner model, which I don't even want to get 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:39.640 into the details of. But that is just like an 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:45.080 unusually reprehensible movie or story in general, putting that kind 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:48.480 of thing aside, where like the person cursed really deserved it. Well, 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:51.400 that's a film that that explores a very common trope, 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:55.480 right where the making and the spitting of curses is 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:59.400 the domain of an outsider people or a people of 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:03.120 like a lower cast within a given society. Yeah, that's 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:05.560 a very common trope. I I don't I don't really 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:07.560 like that kind as much. I like the Witch curses. 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:11.320 But we should specify for the purposes of the episode 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:14.760 what a curse is. So, a curse is an invocation 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:19.120 of magic power to cause injury or misfortune to someone 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:23.160 or something. It is essentially the inversion of a blessing. 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:26.960 A blessing is a benediction, it's a wish of good 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:30.760 will towards someone, and a curse is a malediction, a 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:34.920 wish invoking magic to cause ill will, to to convey 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:38.360 ill will and cause ill fortune on somebody else. Other 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:42.120 names would be like schaden zob or black magic, binding, 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:47.080 cutting off. It's using supernatural power to hurt someone. An 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:50.720 invocation aspect here is key because it's not a mere prophecy. 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:55.159 It's not someone uh, you know, casting bones and saying, oh, 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:59.000 this will transpire, even saying this will transpire because of 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:03.480 this transgression. No, it's a it's it's an appeal to uh, 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:06.800 to a god or some divine force to to punish, 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:12.640 or just simply a magical punishment that essentially emerges from 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:16.440 the lips or from writing and then works its its 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:19.120 will on its own. Yeah, curses are not just predictions. 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:24.200 They are spoken into existence. Now. Curses are often unleashed 0:05:24.240 --> 0:05:26.760 by the gods in our our myth and our fiction, 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:31.400 cursed placed upon individuals or groups of individuals. One thinks of, say, 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:35.159 the curse of Eve, the mark of Cain uh, the 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:39.640 various individuals that have been cursed in other fictions, the 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:44.440 curse of Innocus uh, dire words becoming dire realities uh, 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:46.880 and is one would expect right when the words are 0:05:46.960 --> 0:05:48.800 rolling off the lips of a god. All a god 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:51.599 needs to do is speak right and things start happening. 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:55.640 You also have various monsters that are born from curses, 0:05:55.720 --> 0:05:59.120 ghosts that are born from curses, even animals too that 0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:02.880 are the prod up of curses. I'm thinking about, Uh, 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:06.400 some of the Greek myths concerning spiders and the curse 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:09.920 placed on a rackney. Um, Pumpkinheads a curse. Pumpkin Heads. 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:13.960 The werewolf is often a curse as well. Uh, So 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:15.560 we have a number of different pots. But I kind 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:18.360 of forgotten about Pumpkinhead. Of exactly how Pumpkinhead worked in 0:06:18.400 --> 0:06:21.080 the horror movie was a witches curse. Yeah, guy, He 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:24.440 he wants revenge on some teenage motor bikers, so he 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:27.320 goes to a witch to cast a curse on them. 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:29.120 Not a great film, but it does have some great 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:32.960 monster effects. And there are any number of cursed villains 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:36.040 in fiction, right, I mean, everybody loves a good good 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:38.760 villain was some sort of significant curse placed upon them. 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:41.600 For instance, in Big Trouble and Little China, we're told 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:45.800 that Lo Pon is cursed by China's first sovereign emperor, 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:49.159 uh quinn s Long, and he has the curse of 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:53.400 no flesh. Interestingly enough, will return to lo Pan in 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:56.360 a bit. Oh well, I look forward to that now. 0:06:56.680 --> 0:06:59.280 We also would be remnist if we didn't mention our 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:03.919 old fend for uh Connor McCloud, Connie mack. The is 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:07.159 essentially of a version of the wandering immortal character, a 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:10.840 character that is, that is, to some extent cursed with immortality. 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:14.400 This is always a lovely a trope in fiction and 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:17.480 mythology folklore as well, the thing that might seem a 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:20.600 blessing but is actually a curse. Oh yeah, like the 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:24.800 idea that when Jesus prophesied that there was at least 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:28.000 someone standing there who was watching him preach, who would 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:30.760 not pass away before the Kingdom of God came with power. 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:33.320 Um that you know that that has led to the 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:36.720 idea of the wandering Jew, that someone standing there that 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:40.840 day is actually immortal and still walking around. Right. There's 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:43.480 a there's another variation on this theme. There is I 0:07:43.480 --> 0:07:46.160 believe it's a Russian tale um or at least East 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:49.680 Eastern European tale called the Soldier in Death. Anyone is 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:52.640 a frank fan of Jim Hinson's The Storyteller series, there's 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:55.800 a wonderful rendition of that little number. But it in 0:07:55.840 --> 0:07:58.600 this story that the soldier eventually is cursed with a 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:03.080 form of immortality because he's basically um frightened. Everyone death 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:04.880 is afraid of him, the devils are afraid of him. 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:07.000 Nobody will let him into heaven or hell. Oh that's 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:09.520 a good story. Uh. So I want to bring it 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:12.920 back to to the curse invoking Maglas against the person 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:15.760 who stole the cloak of servandas so, I mentioned that 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:19.800 this was inscribed on a lead tablet, right, And it 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:24.040 turns out that there are thousands of curse tablets like 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:27.400 this from the ancient world. Uh. This one, like most 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:31.520 of them, is a small lead or pewter sheet on 0:08:31.560 --> 0:08:35.200 which a curse is inscribed with the stylus. And uh, 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:38.120 sometimes they'll be rolled up into kind of a scroll, 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:41.400 like the metal will be rolled up. And one thing 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:45.120 that you can discover by reading various curse tablets from 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:50.360 antiquity is that an extremely common genre of curses in 0:08:50.440 --> 0:08:54.720 actual history appears to consist of curses against people who 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:58.920 stole things from you. And one quote I came across 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:01.760 that I thought was interesting. Richard Buckley, co director of 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:04.880 the University of Lesser Archaeological Services who is involved in 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:08.960 that discovery, uh said quote. It has been suggested, on 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:12.400 the basis of name forms and the value of items stolen, 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:15.680 that the curses relate to the lives of ordinary people 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:18.679 rather than the wealthy, and that they were perhaps commissioned 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:22.480 by the dedicator from a professional curse writer. So so 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:25.920 generally here we're not dealing with rich people coming to 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:30.119 do curses. We're dealing with common people dealing with common problems, 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:32.920 like the theft of an item from their from their 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:35.959 person or from their house. And when that gets stolen 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:38.000 and they don't know what to do, they can go 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:40.960 say to a scribe and pay that person, you know, 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:43.960 somebody who's literate, and pay that person to write out 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:46.679 a curse on a tablet for them. You know, I 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:49.559 think we can all understand and relate to this, uh, 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:51.680 this impulse. If you've ever been a victim of a 0:09:51.720 --> 0:09:55.320 crime like this and in a theft for instance, and 0:09:55.559 --> 0:09:57.640 the police are like, yeah, there's nothing we can do, sorry, 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:00.679 you're just out however much money you lost on that 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:04.520 iPhone charger or whatever it was stolen out of your car. Uh, 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:06.960 And then you uh, you know, what what what's left 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:09.640 to do? Maybe spend a few dollars and and curse 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:12.920 the individual, right, I mean what percentage of small thefts 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:15.640 are actually solved and you get your stuff returned? I 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:18.520 would have to guess almost none. Yeah. Absolutely. Now. Now 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:21.480 this does make me think though, that if I were 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:27.760 a professional um cursed tablet manufacturer in olden times, it 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:30.439 sounds like the best thing you could do to to 0:10:30.559 --> 0:10:34.240 drum up business is to go around stealing random things 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:38.600 from people and just like burying them somewhere. Uh, because 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:40.480 then people are gonna get piste off and they're gonna say, 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:42.640 who stole my cloak? And then they're gonna go buy 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:45.840 another tablet from you. Well, I would guess that would 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:48.880 depend on you not believing that the curses are efficacious, 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:54.719 Otherwise you'd just be accumulating curses that would actually harm you. 0:10:55.080 --> 0:10:58.160 Well I would I guess. Yeah. In this model, the 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:00.400 the individual making the curses is in on a game. 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:02.600 You know, they can't be a true believer. They have 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:05.440 to be uh, you know, the the con artist in 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:08.120 the scenario. Well, that is something that we could definitely 0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:12.120 talk about, because there are obviously differences in belief in 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:15.680 the power of curses in witchcraft all throughout history. Uh, 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:18.000 you know, we we find these curse tablets all throughout 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:21.720 the ancient Mediterranean. They're these wonderful artifacts of evil magic 0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:23.680 or you know, you could think of it as evil, 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:25.840 because we usually think of curses as evil. But really 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:29.320 the people who were who were commissioning these, in many 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:32.280 cases we're seeking justice. You know, that they were trying 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:35.640 to get back something that had been unfairly taken from them. 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:38.000 But there are other varieties of curse tablets that are 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:42.000 more just kind of a a desire to get power 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:44.920 over arrival or to you know, a desire to hurt 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:48.480 some kind of competitor or enemy. In Latin, the curse 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:52.560 tablets are known as deficitions. In Greek, they're known as 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:55.480 cata desmoi. I don't know if I pronounced those correctly, 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:58.920 but close enough. You know, you'll sometimes hear people from 0:11:58.960 --> 0:12:02.480 the you know, people talking about the ancient Greco Roman 0:12:02.520 --> 0:12:07.120 world as a place of unusual reason and skepticism for 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:09.280 its time. You know, that sort of characterization of like 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:13.679 ancient Greece in ancient Romans places of like philosophy or something. 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:16.960 Oh yeah, there's an there's an entire argument that that 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:21.559 science and reason is is birthed solely out of out 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:25.000 of Greco Roman tradition, and that and that it only 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:27.760 spreads to the far corners of the world, that anything 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:30.199 that the you know, the that there were there was 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:33.400 taking place in ancient India or ancient China or meso America, 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:35.880 that these these didn't really count because they hadn't been 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:39.600 touched by a by the Greco Roman vibe yet. Now 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:42.319 obviously that's a nonsense. In fact, I don't really know. 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:45.559 I don't come across people making that argument anymore. I 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:49.600 think I feel like most most thinkers have have moved 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:52.560 beyond that. But I know that in The Demon Hunted World, 0:12:52.720 --> 0:12:56.160 Segan spends a little time discrediting this notion as well. 0:12:56.320 --> 0:12:58.640 But the other side of that is just the belief 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:02.280 that the ancient Greco Roman and world was this unusually 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:06.760 reasonable and skeptical place, relatively free from superstition and paranoia 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:10.120 about witchcraft. But the evidence indicates that just really is 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:12.920 not the case. It might be the case among some 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:16.760 particular you know, members of the elite or the intelligencia 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:20.400 or something. You might read their own memoirs and find 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:23.080 that this person in history who left a lot of 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:27.200 writing happened to be skeptical about things. But among people 0:13:27.320 --> 0:13:31.000 in general, the ancient Mediterranean appears to have been run 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:34.920 through with fear of witchcraft and with the use of curses, 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:37.560 even in the Roman period. Plenty of the Elder rights 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:40.520 in his Natural History in the first century CE. We 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:42.960 mentioned him a minute ago in the middle of a 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:46.760 section about the power of portents and spells. Quote, there 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:50.120 is no one who does not dread being spell bound 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:54.080 by means of evil imprecations, and hints the practice after 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:57.880 eating eggs or snails of immediately breaking the shells or 0:13:57.960 --> 0:14:01.079 piercing them with a spoon. I was like, well, what 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:04.400 is that about? So this is from the translation the 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:08.920 eight translation by John Bostock. Bostock or Bostock however you 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:12.040 say that, And there's a footnote that says, quote, it 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:15.079 is a superstition still practice to pierce the shell of 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:18.360 an egg after eating it. Less to the witches should come. 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:21.320 I've been doing it wrong this whole time, I know. 0:14:21.480 --> 0:14:23.880 So I went and read a little bit more about this. Basically, 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:25.840 the idea is that if you eat an egg and 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:28.920 you leave the shell just sitting around. A witch can 0:14:29.000 --> 0:14:32.400 come along and prick that shell with a needle while 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:34.640 citing the name of a person who wants to cast 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:37.000 a curse against you, and that will allow them to 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:38.920 do a curse. And this is a common part of 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:42.000 like sympathetic magic, like you touch the thing. Yeah, but 0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:44.520 am I peeling eggs wrong? That's what I'm wondering, because 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:47.080 whenever I peel an egg, I like I end up 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:50.880 just destroying the eggshell. Like it looks pretty pierced to 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:53.840 me because I've just ripped it to pieces. Well, maybe 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:55.640 it's if they find a big shard of it and 0:14:55.680 --> 0:14:58.040 they can pierce it, or maybe there's this is like 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:01.240 a post egg sucking scenario. People are just you know, 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:03.080 putting one hole in it and sucking it out. I 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:06.000 don't know, you took that to a nasty place. There's 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:09.400 nothing wrong with the eating raw egg that way, I guess. 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:12.080 I mean of the things one could be doing in 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:17.280 in in ancient Greece, as egg sucking sounds reasonable. Yeah, 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:22.520 but it leaves you vulnerable to witchcraft, I guess so. Famously, 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:25.800 many curse tablets have been found in the city of Bath, 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:28.720 which was a settlement known for its hot springs used 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:31.600 as a spa in a bath during Roman times, and 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:34.840 the goddess of these hot springs was a Celtic deity 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:38.160 named Soulis, who in many of these curses that have 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:41.960 been found at Bath, seems to be merged through syncretism 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:46.360 with the Roman goddess Minerva as Sulis Minerva. I read 0:15:46.400 --> 0:15:49.119 that one of these curses from Bath is a bronze 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:51.880 It's for a bronze container that had been stolen. It 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:54.200 seems like most of these also have to do with theft, 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:57.840 and the curse asked the goddess to make sure that 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:01.440 the stolen container ended up old with the thief's blood. 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:04.320 That's pretty good. That is really good. That's clever. Yeah, 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:06.360 I mean it basically comes back to that old adage, 0:16:06.400 --> 0:16:08.520 I hope you choke on it. You know, so somebody 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:12.800 has has has has obtained something of yours or something 0:16:12.800 --> 0:16:18.480 that you feel should be yours through underhanded actions. Then 0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:20.720 you just you just say, well, I hope, I hope 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:23.600 you choke on that. I hope that this brings about 0:16:23.600 --> 0:16:25.480 your death. And we just kind of we kind of 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:28.160 throw that one out. But that is essentially a curse. 0:16:28.200 --> 0:16:29.800 Even if we we say it, you know, kind of 0:16:29.800 --> 0:16:32.920 flippantly or comedically. It's the unspoken part of you can 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:35.280 have it, you know, and you can have it just 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:37.800 meaning like and something bad is going to happen to you. Yeah, 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:39.800 this thing is, this is curse now anyway, I don't 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:41.720 want it. But then again, a lot of these curses 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:44.920 demand the return of the item, and they say like, 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:47.200 if you don't return the items, say, you know, in 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:50.000 nine days, may he be destroyed by the ninth day 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:54.320 or something like that. Another one quote Docillianus, son of 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:57.720 Bruce Serra's to the Most Holy God, Sulus, I curse 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:00.640 him who has stolen my hooded cloak, whether and or woman, 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:04.600 whether slave or free, that Sulis inflict death upon him, 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:08.040 and not allow him sleep or children now and in 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:10.639 the future until he has brought my hooded cloak to 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:13.080 the temple of her divinity. Now, I like how this 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:16.840 particular curse is nice and uh and and and broad. 0:17:17.359 --> 0:17:20.000 Here you know, it's it's the it's the buckshot of curses, 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:23.720 because it is it is promising for what problem sleeping 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:28.720 and potentially problem bearing children. Uh, there's a lot of 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:31.919 room here. So if one if the individual who is 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:34.840 cursed and like knows that the curses leveled at them, like, Oh, 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:36.879 I think he's talking about me because I totally stole 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:41.280 that cloak. Uh. Chances are they might encounter a situation where, oh, man, 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:43.840 I'm having a little trouble sleeping, or I'm or are 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:49.000 or I'm having trouble conceiving. Maybe it was that curse. Well, yeah, 0:17:49.040 --> 0:17:51.920 in the secular interpretation, you're trying to get the victim's 0:17:52.040 --> 0:17:54.560 mind working against them, and we can talk about that 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:57.600 more later when we discuss like the psychological and scientific 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:02.080 aspects of cursing. But but you're also probably believing in 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:04.520 real magic power and thinking, yeah, something bad is going 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:06.760 to happen to this person. That's true. We do have 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:08.680 to come back time and time again to the idea 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:12.439 that we're dealing with people, more often than the common 0:18:12.440 --> 0:18:16.120 people here, who do not have anything approaching the scientific 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:20.400 understanding of the world. They have magical explanations for how 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:23.840 the world works, and therefore that worldview is open to 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:28.160 magical manipulation. Now, you mentioned that you liked the things 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:30.359 that have been picked out in this curse, denying you 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:34.080 sleep and denying your children general things that are invoked 0:18:34.080 --> 0:18:36.359 in these curses would be to like make it so 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:40.440 the thief cannot defecate or urinate, to make the thief bleed, 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:44.719 to cause sexual problems, to prevent them from sleeping or eating. 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:47.960 There's all kinds of stuff. But I wonder who picks 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:50.439 out what goes in the curse. Is that up to 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:53.320 the scribe who you're commissioning the curse from, or is 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:55.000 that up to you? Do you go to a scribe 0:18:55.000 --> 0:18:57.040 and say, Okay, here's what I want. I want the 0:18:57.040 --> 0:18:59.480 bleeding and I want the sexual problems. Yeah. Do you 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:02.159 think it's it's package based or it's all a cart right, 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:04.480 I don't know. You know, I think this would have 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:07.840 been a great, a great curse if you just said, 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:11.080 all right, whoever stole this cloak from me, every time 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:12.840 from now on, for the rest of your life, every 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:16.040 time you stub your toe, that's me. That's this curse, 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:18.119 you know, that's that That would be a good one, 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:20.119 because nothing is worse than stubbing your toe in that 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:23.159 second that you have stubbed it, um and you always 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:25.840 feel like somebody's to blame, yes, and you need to blame. 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:28.119 So usually, if you're me, you just curse at the 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:31.320 coffee table or what have you put that there? Yeah, 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:36.639 but then you're like, oh, servandas it was you. So 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:39.159 these tablets are actually they're more than just sort of 0:19:39.200 --> 0:19:43.240 a magical curiosity. Uh. The tablets of Bath and many 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:47.280 others have actually proven useful in helping experts understand the 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:51.159 common vernacular language of say Roman Britain in the second 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:53.639 to fourth century. Because again, when you think about it, 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:56.440 curse tablets are kind of like graffiti. It's a window 0:19:56.600 --> 0:20:00.200 into how written language was used by people who we're 0:20:00.240 --> 0:20:02.840 not writing the kinds of works that get copied and 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:05.719 stored in libraries and come down to us through history, 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:10.440 you know, like nowadays, I assume future historians will probably 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:13.240 get to know what it was like when the average 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:18.000 English speaker in the United States used written English because 0:20:18.000 --> 0:20:20.119 they can see it all over the internet. But in 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:23.440 ancient Rome, unless you like, wrote books that people thought 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:25.680 were very valuable, most of the time, people weren't going 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:28.000 to see what it looked like when you were, you know, 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:31.440 using language. Side note, I wonder if in hip hop, 0:20:31.880 --> 0:20:36.680 like a distract is considered a curse. That's interesting sort 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:38.840 of kind of maybe do you well, I mean, there's 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:41.440 a lot of insults but does it actually like, does 0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:44.680 it invoke a power to wish harm upon you? Maybe? 0:20:44.760 --> 0:20:46.760 I don't know. I mean sometimes you could say that, well, 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:51.760 they're threats, but their self actualized things. They're like I'm 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:55.040 going to do something to you. Yeah, I guess they are. 0:20:55.040 --> 0:20:57.399 They tend to be more threats than though, though I 0:20:57.440 --> 0:20:59.240 don't I don't know. There might be some distracts out there. 0:20:59.240 --> 0:21:02.480 I would love to hear about any distracts that invoke 0:21:03.320 --> 0:21:07.720 magical forces or sort of the the inner workings of fate. Oh, 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:10.160 that's good. I bet there are some. I bet there 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:12.240 have to be some religious ones. Surely there's some like 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:14.960 religious sort of distracts. Maybe they're not individual, but I 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:19.440 mean one of the big uh selling points of religion, 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:21.200 and we'll discuss this more as we go forward, is 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:24.640 the idea that God or God's are going to punish 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:27.720 those who wronged you or are wronging you or living 0:21:27.760 --> 0:21:29.720 their life in a way that you don't agree with. Now, 0:21:29.840 --> 0:21:33.000 there will be some sort of divine vengeance, and therefore 0:21:33.200 --> 0:21:36.040 you know to invoke that divine vengeance is essentially a curse. 0:21:36.280 --> 0:21:39.840 Like anybody has ever stood on a street corner and 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:42.920 yelled nasty things with a God sign at participants in 0:21:42.920 --> 0:21:46.960 a parade or something like that, they're essentially spitting out curses. Now, 0:21:47.000 --> 0:21:49.359 they probably wouldn't think of it that way because they 0:21:49.359 --> 0:21:53.160