In the earliest examples, a curse was a punishment handed out by a deity for misbehaving or devious human be the story of adam and eve in the christian bible is full of curses doled out after their disobedience to god's instructions. Hard physical work, painful childbirth and expulsion from paradise are all described as their punishment. The irish speak of curses as if they were birds. Once a curse is spoken aloud, they say it can float around a place until it finds its target. The intended receiver wasn't in the room, a curse could drift around for up to seven years. Not aimlessly, though. A curse was like a heat seeking missile, waiting until the moment when the person would arrive in scandinavia, curses were more like bullets. A person might utter a curse at an enemy, but it could also be turned back or returned to the speaker where it would deal the effects of the curse on the speaker. Instead, think duels, if you will, just with words. The moors of the middle ages had a very interesting tradition involving curses. It was said that if a man followed a prescribed set of rules and requirements, he was allowed to ask others to help him with something important. If after jumping through all the correct hoops, his request for help was still refused, though, a curse was said to descend upon those who refused him, not a spec curse that he made up, but a general, sicidal curse, as if tradition itself were punishing the unhelpful people. According to another legend, the celtic people of europe use curses in a powerful way. If a tenant farmer was fired and evicted from the land he had been hired to work, he would quickly go and gather stones from all over the property. Then he would put these stones in a lit fireplace, fall on his knees and pray. What did they pray for? Exactly well.