Folk Lore and Urban Myth 1: The Curse of the Crying Boy

'Hello! My name is Buffy. Ask me about curses.'

- Buffy the Vampire Slayer,  episode 1, Season 6


Welcome to Buddha's Black Dog, my blog on curses and spells: for what it's about  (and my other blogs) see

http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/

Buddha's Black Dog is  organised thematically, and older posts will be linked to  after each post. 

The 'Curse of the Crying Boy' is a very curious curse associated with the once-popular kitsch print, 'The Crying Boy'.  The invaluable Fortean Times featured this story in July 2008 -

'The Curse of the Crying Boy’ appeared out of the blue one morning in 1985. The Sun, at that time the most popular tabloid newspaper in the English-speaking world, published on page 13 of its 4 September edition a story headlined: “Blazing Curse of the Crying Boy”. It told how Ron and May Hall blamed a cheap painting of a toddler with tears rolling down his face for a fire which gutted their terraced council home in Rotherham, a mining town in South Yorkshire. The blaze broke out in a chip-pan in the kitchen of their home of 27 years and spread rapidly. But although the downstairs rooms of the house were badly damaged, the framed print of the Crying Boy escaped unscathed. It continued to hang there, surrounded by a scene of devastation. '

See
http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/1308/the_curse_of_the_crying_boy.html

As the Fortean Times points out, there is an old superstition that you can expect bad luck when a picture falls off a wall, and something about the story sparked off a series of similar stories about accidents to the painting  - or variants of it - causing houses to burn down.



See also

Introduction

http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011_05_01_archive.html

Ancient Curses 1: the Curse of Akkad

http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011/06/ancient-curses-1-curse-of-akkad.html

Ancient Curses 2: Otzi the Ice Man

http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011/07/ancient-curses-2-otzi-ice-man.html

Ancient Curses  3: Egyptian Curses

http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011/07/ancient-curses-3-egyptian-curses.html

Ancient Curses 4: a professional's counter-spell

http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011/10/ancient-curses-4-professionals-counter.html

Curses and Music 1: The 27 Curse and Amy Winehouse

http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011/07/curses-and-music-1-27-curse-and-amy.html

Curses in Literature 1: the Jackdaw of Rheims

http://draft.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6404009094692616159#editor/target=post;postID=8036703344964600731

Curses in Literature 2: 'The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral'

http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2012/02/curses-in-literature-2-stalls-of.html

Curses that Worked 1: the Curse of Shakespeare's Tomb

http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011/06/curses-that-worked-1-curse-of.html

Proverbial Curses 1

http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011/09/proverbial-curses-1.html

Theatre Curses 1: Macbeth

http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011/09/theatre-curses-1-macbeth.html

Historical Curses 1: the Monition of Cursing Against the Border Reivers

http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011/09/historical-curses-1-monition-of-cursing.html

My other blogs are 

A Glasgow Album - a photoblog drifting in a melancholy manner around the city

http://glasgowalbum.blogspot.com/

and photographs of dogs tied up outside shops and other places (not too melancholy)

http://parkeddogs.blogspot.com/

 

Curses in Literature 2: 'The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral'

'Hello! My name is Buffy. Ask me about curses.'

- Buffy the Vampire Slayer,  episode 1, Season 6


Welcome to Buddha's Black Dog, my blog on curses and spells: for what it's about  (and my other blogs) see

http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/

Buddha's Black Dog is  organised thematically, and older posts will be linked to  after each post.

M R James - author of many classic ghost stories - has a rather good curse  in  'The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral'.


When I grew in the Wood
I was water'd wth Blood
Now in the Church I stand
Who that touches me with his Hand
If a Bloody hand he bear
I councell him to be ware
Lest he be fetcht away
Whether by night or day,
But chiefly when the wind blows high
In a night of February.
This I drempt, 26 Febr. AD 1699. John Austin.



The curse is found in an old carving in the church. The reference to 'water'd with blood' indicates that the tree from which the carving was made was a site of sacrifice - probably human as well as animal.


The complete text of this rather disturbing story can be found here.

http://www.litgothic.com/Texts/barchester.html

See also


Introduction
http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011_05_01_archive.html


Ancient Curses 1: the Curse of Akkad
http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011/06/ancient-curses-1-curse-of-akkad.html

Ancient Curses 2: Otzi the Ice Man
http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011/07/ancient-curses-2-otzi-ice-man.html

Ancient Curses  3: Egyptian Curses
http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011/07/ancient-curses-3-egyptian-curses.html
Ancient Curses 4: a professional's counter-spell
http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011/10/ancient-curses-4-professionals-counter.html

Curses and Music 1: The 27 Curse and Amy Winehouse
http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011/07/curses-and-music-1-27-curse-and-amy.html

Curses in Literature 1: the Jackdaw of Rheims
http://draft.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6404009094692616159#editor/target=post;postID=8036703344964600731

Curses that Worked 1: the Curse of Shakespeare's Tomb
http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011/06/curses-that-worked-1-curse-of.html

Proverbial Curses 1
http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011/09/proverbial-curses-1.html
Theatre Curses 1: Macbeth
http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011/09/theatre-curses-1-macbeth.html
Historical Curses 1: the Monition of Cursing Against the Border Reivers
http://buddhasblackdog.blogspot.com/2011/09/historical-curses-1-monition-of-cursing.html
 
My other blogs are

A Glasgow Album - a photoblog drifting in a melancholy manner around the city

http://glasgowalbum.blogspot.com

and photographs of dogs tied up outside shops and other places (not too melancholy)

http://parkeddogs.blogspot.com/