Reiver Families and Cursing Stone
Does this Medieval Curse mean Trouble for Carlisle?
The Cursing Stone is carved with a medieval curse. Carlisle residents blame it for floods, fires, unemployment, disease and the relegation of the local soccer team.
The Cursing Stone was installed at Carlisle's Tullie House Museum in 2001. Since then the city of Carlisle in Cumbria, on the Anglo-Scottish border, has been affected by the worst floods in history. In addition there has been a marked increase in unemployment. Factories have been destroyed by major fires, foot and mouth disease has decimated livestock and Carlisle United soccer team has dropped a league!
Tullie House Museum explores the City's intriguing and turbulent history as a Border City and is one of Carlisle's leading visitor attractions. As part of Carlisle's Millennium Project the museum has been linked to nearby Carlisle Castle by a new underground pathway: the Millennium Subway.
Carlisle City Council invited Andy Altmann, of London graphic designers Why Not Associates, to design the project. Altmann is well-known for his design of the Flock of Words, a typographical pavement at Morecambe, in northwest England.
The Millennium Subway
The pathway has been sandblasted with the surnames of the descendants of the Border Reiver families. The Reivers were cattle rustlers, blackmailers and thieves who frequently crossed the Anglo-Scottish border to raid neighbouring areas. They were at their most active from the late 13th century to the end of the 16th century. Some of the names included Hobson, Hodgson, Bell, Chamberlain, Charlton, Simpson, Turner, Davison and Young and all of these are still common today.
The Cursing Stone
The Cursing Stone, which sits on the Millennium pathway, is a monumental chunk of granite which has been inscribed with an extract of a medieval curse. The stone weighs 7.5 tons but before it was carved to its present shape it weighed in at a hefty 12 tons!
The Origins of the Curse
The curse originated in 1525 when the Archbishop of Glasgow, Gavin Dunbar, issued the curse against the Reiver families. The curse was more than a thousand words long and is often referred to as the "mother of all curses". It was read aloud from the pulpits of churches throughout the border region. The Reivers were condemned to the torments of hell. The curse appears in full in "The Steel Bonnets - The Story of the Anglo-Scottish Border Reivers". An extract reads:
"I condemn thaim perpetualie to the deip pit of hell, remain with Lucifer and all his fallowis, and thair bodeis to the gallowis of the Burrow Mure, first to be hangit, syne revin and ruggit with doggis, swyne, and utheriswyld beists, abhominable to all the warld."
Controversy and White Witches
Since its installation the Stone has caused huge uproar. Local Councillors have blamed it for all the city's problems. One Councillor called for its removal and destruction. Andy Altmann told Suite that he received dozens of telephone calls from journalists around the world asking for information. The stone was even cited as a possible 'shrine for devil worship' and a White Witch rang Altmann to ask if there was a space at the top of the two-metre tall stone. He offered to put an anti-curse on top of the stone!
The stone still sits on the pathway at Tullie House where there is always an exciting variety of exhibitions reflecting the history and culture of this fascinating region.
Sources:
- The Steel Bonnets - The Story of the Anglo-Scottish Border Reivers, George Macdonald Fraser, HarperCollins Publishers Ltd., 1989 ISBN 0002727463.
- Andy Altmann, Why Not Associates
