"Whew!"
"Attach the boulder of victory."
"D'oh!"
Posted on 03/02/2005 1:57:39 PM PST by TFFKAMM
LONDON (AFP) - The "Cursing Stone" of Carlisle was intended simply as an innocent community art project, harking back to the British city's colourful past.
But following floods, disease and a string of other local misfortunes, city elders are considering whether the 10,000-pound (14,500-euro, 19,000-dollar) artwork should be removed and destroyed, a report said on Wednesday.
The stone, a 14-tonne granite slab intricately engraved with a 16th-century diatribe against violent raiders, was commissioned by city councillors for the Millennium celebrations.
Created by Carlisle-born artist Gordon Young, is now stands at the centre of the city, near its castle. The 1,069-word curse was originally levelled at "reiver families", who raided Carlise and other parts of the far north of England from just over the border in Scotland in the 16th century.
However, since the work of art was installed, Carlisle has suffered the worst local flooding for more than a century, an outbreak of livestock disease foot and mouth and a rash of local job losses as factories closed.
Even the city's beloved football team, Carlisle United, has endured their own famine of goals, leading them to be relegated from the Football League, The Times newspaper said.
Now the local council is to debate a motion about whether to move the Cursing Stone outside the city boundaries, or even destroy it altogether.
It was proposed by councillor Tim Tootle, who said he was finally pushed into action by floods which deluged Carlisle in January, killing three people.
"Many groups and individuals warned the council that the placing of a non-Christian artifact, based on an old curse on local families, would bring ill luck to the city," he was quoted as saying by the newspaper. "This has (been) seen to be correct."
Artist Young -- a descendant of one of the reiver families -- has angrily compared the plan to the destruction of the giant Buddhas in Bamiyan by Afghanistan's Taliban regime in 2001.
"It is of that order. They want to smash it to pieces. It is a powerful work of art but it is certainly not part of the occult," he said.
"If I thought my sculpture would have affected one Carlisle United result, I would have smashed it myself years ago."
"Whew!"
"Attach the boulder of victory."
"D'oh!"
Jesus words were Bless those that curse thee, bless those that despitefully use you pray for your enemies.
We find in the bible that those that would curse god's people shall themselves become cursed and they that shall bless the people of God shall themselves be blessed.
It is intersting that they did this, that events happened and in this age of agnostic and antiesitc enlightenment that the locals fear the stone as their source of trouble.
> commissioned by city councillors for the Millennium celebrations
Sheesh. What was it with the Brits and their goofy Millenium projects? Did *any* of them work out right?
There once was a town with a rock
Their neighbors it was inscribed to mock
But it all went to hell
As the floods rose and fell
Now they want to get rid the block!
If it weren't etched on a rock it would make a good flame post.
Nah. We don't have a soccer team...
lol...
Silly idea, from silly man, with silly name.
Maybe we don't have a soccer team because the Curse stone did it's work!
You know, we never have a good old-fashioned cursing anymore
IMO, that would be because of a BLESSING stone!
;-)
We find in the bible that those that would curse god's people shall themselves become cursed and they that shall bless the people of God shall themselves be blessed.
It is intersting that they did this, that events happened and in this age of agnostic and antiesitc enlightenment that the locals fear the stone as their source of trouble.
The huge irony of this situation is that the curse is a Christian in origin, since it was pronounced a few hundred years ago by the Archbishop of Carlisle against the Border Reivers who were causing trouble and stealing sheep.
We must have a similar rock somewhere in the Greater Cleveland area. Probably put up sometime around the end of 1964 in Art Modell's back yard.
Really I have no idea what is going on there. I find it more interesting in this "enlightened" "non-supersticious" age where angels, demons, heaven, hell, and I guess blessing and curses can not and do not exist -- that in western europe someone something on a rock (and it was an arts project to beat) and it brings a town to its knees.
To me the Irony is the words of the bible:
Revelation 9:20 And they . . . repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:
See they don't seek God or go to (a christian man?)the bishop-- but they will have none of that the problem is the rock.
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