REMASTERED – Episode 13: Off the Path

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I've spent most of my life in the presence of troubled sports teams. Growing up in the Chicago area, I was always aware of how long the Cubs had gone without winning a World Series title.

It was less a point of pain and more a numb spot in the collective consciousness of everyone around me.

When I moved to Boston in the late 90s, I discovered a similar culture, this time centered around the Red Sox. Again, here was a team that had spent decades waiting.

Year Year after year, hope would be manufactured and piled high into the cart of expectations, only to have that cart dunked on its side at the end of each season. Until 2004, that is.

That was the year things changed.

That was the year that brought the Tower of Hopelessness and Doubt, a tower that took 86 years to construct, brick by brick, year after year, and brought it all crashing down. The wait was over.

I don't plan to talk about baseball today, but I do do think the story of teams like the Cubs and the Red Sox have something valuable to teach us about how our minds work.

Our ability to justify, to explain, to make sense of what seems so often to make no sense at all. That's what I find fascinating.
Humans are so very good at finding reasons.

Lurking behind the Red Sox' 86-year wait like a shadow and 108 years for the Cubs are the 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 Bambino and 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 been deadly.

I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is lore.

The word curse comes from the Old English word, curse. Just drop the E and you'll have the root.

The original meaning isn't clear, but one of the uses of the Old English word is to denote a path or a route. Now, 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 for 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 their punishment. 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 was like a heat-seeking missile, waiting until the moment when the person would arrive.
In Scandinavia, curses were more like bullets.

A person might utter a curse at an enemy, but it could also be turned back or returned to the speaker, where it would deal the effects of the curse on the speaker instead.

Think duels, if you will, just with words. 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 though, a curse was said to descend upon those who refused him.

Not a specific curse that he made up, but a general societal curse, as if tradition itself were punishing the unhelpful people.

According to another 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 they pray for, exactly?

Well, they prayed that for as long as the stones remained unburnt, every possible curse would descend upon their landlords, his 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 curse, they would gather them back up and scatter them 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 or tools.

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.

Prince Amadou of Savoy told his father in 1867 that he planned to marry Maria Vittoria Dalpozzo. 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 took her own life. 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 why.

The gatekeeper was found in the gatehouse, lying in a pool of his own blood.

The death toll continued, though. 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 brain hemorrhage and died on the spot.

He was soon followed by the stationmaster, who somehow got pulled under the royal train carriage and was crushed to death.

The king apparently saw a pattern and recalled the entire party back to the palace. While they were leaving the train though, one of the noblemen with them 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 herself was the final victim of the curse, they say. She died in childbirth later at the age of just 29.

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 stones, 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 a word 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 Tamerlane'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 of an idea it was to open the tomb. They spoke of a curse.
They spoke, but no one listened.

On June 21st of 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 the Second World 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 of 1942, the Soviets decided to return Tamerlane's body to the tomb, complete with a proper Islamic burial.

Days later, the German invasion was repelled at Stalingrad, finally pushing them back to the West and marking a turning point in the war. A turning point, some say, that was caused by a 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 one other 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 Saint Patrick.

Patrick, of course, was known for his work spreading Christianity throughout Ireland in the 5th century, but he apparently did not always meet with with success on his travels.

According to the account, St. Patrick once visited a clan that lived in a southern kingdom of Ireland called Osserie.

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 King'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 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.
The reason was incredibly 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 unusual 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 Osseri were forever cursed to become the very thing they worshipped, wolves, and this curse followed a very specific set of rules.

Every seven years, they said, one couple from the village of Osseri would be transformed into wolves.

They would be stuck in this form day and night, year after year, until the next couple would take over, transforming into wolves themselves and freeing the couple before them.

Part of the curse was said to be how the people of Osseri maintained their human minds while in the form of a wolf, but although they thought and spoke as human, 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, goes, the people of Osseri have been cursed.

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 history 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 story, but only the ones with closure.
And that's what curses offer us.

At the end of the day, curses help us make sense of a thing or 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 help us make sense of life.

I can imagine that life in 6th 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 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 from local werewolves certainly did their part in explaining these disappearances. But they were just stories, right?

Gerald of Wales was a 12th century historian who recorded something interesting. He had been sent to Ireland by King Henry II to record the local history.

According to him, a local priest requested his company while he was there. This priest sat down and told Gerald an amazing story.

According to the report, this priest had been traveling near the western border of County Meath, close to what would have been ancient Ossary, 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.

Now, obviously, the priest was frightened. He thought he had been 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.

And secondly, he realized that the voice was not coming from a man at all, but a wolf.

The priest 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, doomed forever to become wolves.

With that, the priest prayed over the man's wife and tended to her illness, and the couple was gone by morning, never to be seen again.

Sometimes folklore can be addictive, and nowhere is that more true than within the subset of folklore that focuses on curses.

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So, it should come as no surprise that I've got another one up my sleeve. And if you stick around through this brief sponsor break, I'll tell you all about it.

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I think all of us can understand how it happens, right? There's a way life tends to play out, the normal flow of events, as it were.

This is why the human mind makes assumptions, because the longer we are around on this planet, the more familiar we become with the typical patterns of life.

And sometimes an event comes along that just doesn't fit the mold. Which is what happened back in 1973.

But we actually need to start a bit earlier than that, over five centuries earlier to be exact, because it was back in 1427 that a man named Casimir was born in Poland.

But while life was difficult for most people in the 15th century, Casimir's upbringing was a bit different. You see, his father was the king.

And although he was not the oldest of the king's sons, a series of events would eventually lead to his coronation in 1447.

Now, we don't have to spend a lot of time on King Casimir IV's life. He wasn't the most prominent king in Poland's history, and he didn't do a lot of bold things.

He was known as the sober king because he refused to drink alcohol, and because his approach to foreign policy was a bit mild.

Casimir lived a relatively long life, considering the era he reigned over, finally passing away in June of 1492 at the age of 64. But in death, he seems to have turned out to be a lot less mild.

It started early. You see, Casimir needed to be transported far south to Vauvel Castle.

But it was also June, and pretty soon after hitting the road, the king's attendants noticed that his body wasn't doing so well.

To help keep the stink under control, and maybe even keep the bugs at bay, they covered the corpse with powdered calcium and limestone, and then draped a fancy cloth over it.

A few days after his death, on June 11th, his wooden coffin was placed inside the tomb. and locked up for eternity.
Or at least that's what they assumed. But five centuries later, all of that changed.

Researchers wanted to better understand who Casimir was, what led to his death, and why decay had arrived so quickly. So they opened up his tomb.

Now, on a whole, people have always harbored a bit of folklore and superstition around the opening of tombs. There's a common belief that doing so might let out something undead or evil.

In fact, many of the researchers in the castle that day even joked about what they were about to do. Watch out for that curse, right?

When Casimir's tomb tomb was opened on April 13th of 1973, the researchers found what they expected, a wooden coffin that had crumbled to splinters and the decayed remains of the long-dead king.

But they apparently also found something else. A curse.
Because within just a few days, four of the 12 researchers present were dead.

Over the years that followed, more and more of them passed away unexpectedly. Infection, stroke, cancer.
15 people in all, if the numbers are correct.

It seems that the involvement in the opening of Casimir's tomb really had been a death sentence, and time was all the curse needed.

Well, sort of.

Because while the underlying idea was true that a dangerous and invisible force locked inside the tomb had been unleashed on the eager archaeologists, it wasn't actually an evil curse carried out by spirits.

It was biology. Inside the tomb, most likely there since his rotting corpse was sealed up back in 1492, was a fungus known as Aspergillus flavus.

It's toxic to humans, and if a person's immune system is weak enough, it can make them sick.

And together with two other species of fungus in the tomb, it was a chance encounter with a deadly cocktail.

Today, King Casimir's remains are safely out of reach, reburied in his beautiful tomb.

But the memory of that recent tragedy all rooted in the unexpected death at the hands of an invisible entity, well, it's left a lot of people still whispering the easier and more sensational explanation.

Science might tell us that there's no such thing as a curse, but for a lot of us, it's all a matter of perception.

In the end, it might not matter much whether the deadly effects are from a spirit or a fungus. Either way, lives were unexpectedly lost after encountering an unseen enemy.

A misfortune for sure, but one that we've been warned about. All thanks to the power of folklore.

This episode of Lore was researched, written, and produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with music by Chad Lawson. Lore is much more than just a podcast, though.

There's a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check Check them both out if you want more lore in your life.

I also make and executive produce a whole bunch of other podcasts, all of which I think you'd enjoy.

My production company, Grim and Mild, specializes in shows that sit at the intersection of the dark and the historical.

You can learn more about all of our shows and everything else going on over in one central place, grimandmild.com. And you can also follow this show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Just search for lore podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi.
I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.

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