Cursed Objects: Could These Real-Life Artefacts Bring Doom?

Fiction and folklore are full of "cursed" objects - but have you ever wondered if there are any real-life examples? It turns out that there are quite a few items with a reputation for paranormal misfortune, such as...

• The Busby Stoop Chair - haunted by a spiteful ghost?
• William the hippo - a figurine ritually crippled by the ancient Egyptians
• The fatal phone number - each owner has faced an early death
• The ring of Silvianus - a ring cursed by a Roman and studied by Tolkien

The Busby Stoop Chair: Would you expect one of the most "cursed" items in the world to be a chair? The tale of this supernaturally-charged furniture goes back to a pair of reprobates in 1702 Yorkshire.

Thomas Busby and his father-in-law Daniel Auty ran a coin-counterfeiting operation, but (as the saying goes) familiarity breeds contempt. One day Busby stumbled into the local inn, only to find Auty in "his" seat. Things escalated to a bitter argument, ending in Auty being hurled from the building... but Busby wasn't satisfied with this victory. That night, he crept into the Auty residence and bludgeoned his erstwhile partner-in-crime to death with a hammer.

Given the prior, highly-public argument and thuggish character of Busby, it shouldn't be surprising that suspicion fell on him. The murderer soon found himself tried, convicted and condemned to hang.

Executions in England often included a stop at the local inn for a last drink - and the same courtesy was extended to Busby. Apparently he sat in his favorite chair, drank his ale and finally proclaimed "may sudden death come to anyone who dare sit in my chair." With this bitter curse, he was taken to his death - his tar dipped body was gibbeted at the crossroads outside the inn.

It seems that people took this curse quite seriously, as the chair soon gained a reputation for dooming any who sat in it. Canadian airmen stationed in Britain during World War II were said to not return from bombing missions if they took a seat, while a pair of RAF pilots crashed on their way back from the pub having dared the chair. A builder who risked it fell to his death hours later - and after the landlord moved the chair to the cellar, a curious beer deliveryman who tried the seat crashed mere miles down the road.

The chair is now homed in the Thirsk museum, hung from the ceiling to prevent anyone from sitting in it. There is one slight wrinkle with this story though - while elements of it are historical fact, the spindles of the "cursed" chair were machine turned and thus are around a century and a half more modern than Busby. Perhaps there's an evil furniture renovator haunting the Yorkshire moors?

William the Crippled Hippo: While ancient Egyptian curses were less common than most people think, they certainly believed in the power of the supernatural. One example of this is a bright blue model hippo from the Middle Kingdom... with three ceremonially broken legs.

The hippo dates back to 1961-1878BC and is made out of faience, a ceramic created using sand or quartz. The figurine is a bright turquoise-blue with features picked out in black, alongside a set of plant motifs. The name "William" was a later addition, added after the hippo featured in the British satire magazine "Punch."

Hippos served a dual role in Egyptian symbolism. As denizens of the marshes surrounding the life-giving Nile, these creatures were viewed as heralds of rebirth (something emphasized by the floral motifs painted on the statue.) On the flip side, the Egyptians were well aware of how dangerous these tough, fast, hungry, big and strong creatures are - artists even used them to represent chaos and destruction.

The ancient Egyptians often included figurines in grave goods, in the hope that the represented creatures would aid the deceased in the afterlife. Including a hippo was both a blessing and a curse - while such an offering had associations with rebirth and vitality, it also invited the hazards associated with the beast.

It seems that the undertakers came up with a solution - when William was found, three of his legs had been purposefully broken to ritually cripple the poor beast and prevent a rampage through the afterlife. The figurine was later restored and now stands on four legs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art - though the lack of phantasmal hippos reported running through the exhibitions suggests the dangers were exaggerated!

The Fatal Phone Number: Calling a phone number an artefact might be a bit of a stretch, but every owner of +359 0888 888 888 has come to a premature end.

The number was issued by Bulgarian phone company Mobitel to former CEO Vladimir Grashnov... only for him to die of cancer at the age of 48. Unfortunate, but these things can and do happen - though there was a rumor that he had been slowly exposed to a radioactive agent by a business rival.

The number then passed on to Konstantin Dimitrov, a high-ranking Bulgarian mobster. He too would die young, shot to death in his early thirties while browsing diamonds with a supermodel in Amsterdam. It's hardly unheard of for mobsters to die violently though.

Next, the deadly digits passed to Konstantin Dishliev. This estate agent had a sideline in drug trafficking - one that came to a bloody halt outside a restaurant in Sofia. Apparently he had lost a massive shipment to a drug bust, so perhaps his death in a hail of bullets was in response to that.

While all these circumstances can be written off as bad luck or a risk associated with being a major criminal, Mobitel elected to withdraw the number rather than set it loose on the populace once again!

The Ring of Silvianus: In 1785 England, a farmer unearthed a 12g gold ring as he worked near the abandoned Roman town of Silchester. The ring was fairly large (being 2.5cm across) and bore multiple inscriptions. Little did the farmer (or the collectors he sold it to) know that the ring was not only stolen, but cursed.

Hundreds of miles and many years later at the Dwarf's Hill Roman site in Gloucestershire, researchers deciphered a Roman tablet addressing the god Nodens. The tablet's author was Silvianus, an aggrieved man who wanted the god to know that his ring has been stolen by Senicianus. Silvianus also mentioned that he has given half of the value of the ring to Nodens, asking that the god to permit no good health to those named Senicianus until the ring is returned to the temple. Since the band of the golden Silchester ring is engraved with an error-laden inscription that name-drops Senicianus, archeologists believe this ring is one and the same.

Curiously, J.R.R. Tolkien is thought to have been consulted on Nodens and the inscriptions featured on the ring. While there is no outright evidence linking his books to this discovery, the similarities between the One Ring of Middle Earth and this ancient, large, engraved, cursed, stolen and lost bit of jewelry are quite striking.

Sources and Further Information:

The tale of Busby Stoop and the thug who was hanged there for bludgeoning his goading father-in-law to death

18th Century murderer's chair continues to captivate supernatural fans

William the Hippo

Hippopotami in Ancient Egypt

Mobile phone number 0888 888 888 is suspended after every user assigned to it DIES

JRR Tolkien ring goes on display at The Vyne exhibition

The Hobbit ring that may have inspired Tolkien put on show

A Cymric, Brythonic and Irish God, also known as Lludd, Lludd Llaw Ereint, Nuadu, Nuadu Aratlám, Nodons, Nodens, Nudens, Noadatus: The Water Maker, The Spirit of Water