The power to curse isn’t limited to witches or magicians – anyone can do it, given extreme circumstances. At least, that’s what many people once believed, as these old stories gathered together by RICHARD HOLLAND show.

‘Through God we shall do valiantly,
For He it is that shall tread down our enemies.’

So ends Psalm 108, the so-called ‘cursing psalm’. Centuries ago it was believed that when read backwards, this Psalm – which calls upon God to vanquish a foe – would bring doom to one’s enemy. However, one had to be careful. When a wicked woman, Quendrida of Mercia, attempted to use the cursing psalm in the 8^th century, ‘her eyes burst from her head, her blood drenched the psalter and she died in agony’.

Belief in the power to curse dates back as far back as the belief in witchcraft – perhaps, therefore, for as long as mankind has existed. But it was not just witches who were believed to have the power to curse: ordinary people could do it too, in extreme circumstances. Stories are told throughout the British Isles of ‘dooms’ announced against wicked landowners or grasping relatives.

Even holy men could pronounce a curse. When Henry II and his Archbishop, Thomas Becket, were at loggerheads, the men of Strood in Kent cut off the tail of the priest’s horse to teach him a lesson. In response, Beckett pronounced that their children should all be born with tails, which, so legend has it, came to pass. In a similar story, when the 8^th century Bishop of Worcester was jeered at after telling off the men of Alcester, in Warwickshire, for working on a Sunday, he cursed them – and tails immediately sprouted out of their backsides.

When King Henry VIII deprived the Church of a grand house, Marwell Hall in Gloucestershire, presenting it as a gift it to the Seymour family, the local priest cursed them, saying they would not hold Marwell long. Henry was furious and had the priest put to death. Nevertheless, his curse held: the Seymours only survived for two generations at the house. One of the victims of the curse was Jane Seymour, who died a year after marrying the king.

You can read the rest of this feature in issue 27 of Paranormal magazine

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