Curses - fantasy or historical fact?

A cursed bard ... one immediately thinks of fantasy, but the Braider of Words is definitely a historical novel. Curses, commandments, cynnedyfs (Wales) or gessa (Ireland), no matter what you call it, are found in many ancient legends.

The most famous representative in Ireland is probably Cú Chulainn, the great hero. He had two commandments: he was not allowed to refuse a woman's invitation to dinner (which really doesn't sound like a curse ...) and he was not allowed to eat dog meat. The combination led to his downfall, because his enemies took advantage of it, of course, when they found out about it. So three old women on the roadside invited him to eat their stew, and of course it contained dog meat, and poof, there went Cú Chulainn's superhuman powers ...

Food commandments are found frequently, often concerning whole cultures (thus Caesar says the Britons would be forbidden to eat hare, goose or chicken), often individual heroes and kings (Fionn mac Cumhaill, Red Deer). But often these commandments are related to other things. For example, the Welsh king Math could only live if he "set his foot on the cleft that gapes between the thighs of a virgin" (Mabinogion). King Conaire Mór was never allowed to spend the ninth night outside Tara, he was not allowed to spend the night in any house whose hearth fire shines out by the window and other things. Some geis were certainly considered a curse, like the one of Fothad Canainne, who always had to carry the heads of three slain enemies when drinking beer. Others, perhaps at first sight, felt it as a gift, like the great farmer Blaí Briugu, who had to sleep with every woman who stayed with him without a husband.

Arduinna, too, knows that her cynnedyf of never staying in one place for more than half a moon is a commandment, but to her feeling it is a curse. And "the cursed bard" just sounds crisper than the "commandment-occupied" ...

Curses and the belief in them are part many cultures. There are amulets against the evil eye, you have to spit quickly if you think you are cursed, you carry certain herbs ... Voodoo, evil eye, curses ... as oh so enlightened modern humans we like to think such things are superstitions, but we are just as easily influenced and manipulated by words, phrases, images. What child doesn't become clumsy and afraid when he is constantly told that he is incapable, a klutz, that life is dangerous for someone like him ... So you can also consider curses as a self-fulfilling prophecy. This prophecy is particularly strong in the (sub)consciousness, if it is presented with the right conviction and strength and cursing is recognized in one's own culture. Or one sees it like the people in former times. As something real.