Map

word

Curse

Beliefs & concepts · Words · Rituals

Speech or writing meant to harm or bind. Legal execration and folk cursing are cousins, not identical acts.

Islam

  • Curse appears in Islam.

    The Qur’an names laʿna — curse / expulsion from mercy — upon rejectors and wrongdoers. Islamic curse speech in that revelation, not a blessing invert alone and not a witchcraft hex dump.

    from M.A.S. Abdel Haleem (translation) · The Qur’an, 2004 (this translation); Arabic text 7th century CE

    appears in · sourced · documented

Norse tradition

Hellenic religion

  • Curse appears in Hellenic religion.

    Herodotus seats curses among family, political, and sanctuary speech that steer outcomes in the Histories. A named curse in that traveler’s speech, not hex/jinx as modern folklore dumps and not a generic malediction pad.

    from Herodotus · Histories, c. 440s BCE

    appears in · sourced · documented

Roman religion

  • Curse appears in Roman religion.

    Virgil’s Aeneid seats spoken curses—Celaeno’s hunger-curse, Dido’s dying curse on Aeneas’s line, and related dirae speech. Curse as word-act in that epic, not Qur’anic or Eddic curse walks restated.

    from Virgil · Aeneid, 19 BCE (unfinished at the poet’s death)

    appears in · sourced · documented

Shinto

  • Curse appears in Shinto.

    The Kojiki has Izanami, after the Yomi rupture, vow to kill a thousand of the living each day, answered by Izanagi’s counter-vow of births. Named death-curse speech in that underworld break, not a folk hex dump and not a generic malediction slogan.

    from Ō no Yasumaro (compiler); Donald L. Philippi (translation) · Kojiki, 712 CE; Philippi trans. 1968

    appears in · sourced · documented

Vedic tradition

Egyptian religion

  • Curse appears in Egyptian religion.

    The Book of the Dead arms the dead with hostile spell speech against enemies, demons, and false accusers — named curse/execration force in that corpus, not a Norse curse dump and not blessing alone.

    from Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972

    appears in · sourced · culturally specific

  • Blessing is associated with Curse.

    In the Jewish Encyclopedia, God’s retributive justice deals blessings to the observer of the law and sorrows or curses to the transgressor — blessing and curse are that paired outcome frame.

    from Isidore Singer et al. · The Jewish Encyclopedia, 1901–1906

    associated with · sourced · documented

  • Eternal Life is associated with Curse.

    In Twining’s Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediæval Christian Art, the Fall points to the second Adam who should free man from the effects of the Curse and bestow eternal life — eternal-life is the gift that undoes that Curse.

    from Louisa Twining · Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediaeval Christian Art, 1852 (new ed. 1885)

    associated with · sourced · documented

sources

  • The Qur’an · M.A.S. Abdel Haleem (translation)

    M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur’an (Oxford).

  • Poetic Edda · Anonymous (Eddic poems); Carolyne Larrington (translation)

    The Poetic Edda, trans. Carolyne Larrington.

  • Histories · Herodotus

    Herodotus, Histories.

  • Aeneid · Virgil

    Virgil, Aeneid.

  • Kojiki · Ō no Yasumaro (compiler); Donald L. Philippi (translation)

    Donald L. Philippi, Kojiki.

  • The Rigveda · Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton (translation)

    Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton, The Rigveda: The Earliest Religious Poetry of India.

  • Book of the Dead · Raymond O. Faulkner (translation)

    Raymond O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead.

  • The Jewish Encyclopedia · Isidore Singer et al.

    Isidore Singer et al., The Jewish Encyclopedia (1901–1906).

  • Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediaeval Christian Art · Louisa Twining

    Louisa Twining, Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediaeval Christian Art.