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NARRATOR: Has this weeping stone brought
misery and misfortune to the owners of this Scottish castle?
Can this American baseball team blame 50 years of defeats
on the malevolent influence of the goat
they banned from the ballpark?
When archaeologists descended to the sacred tomb of Tutankhamun,
did they unleash the curse of the pharaohs?
Mysteries from the files of Arthur C. Clarke,
author of "2001" and inventor of the communications satellite.
Now in retreat in Sri Lanka, he ponders the riddles
of this and other worlds.
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Elephants are now protected here in Sri Lanka,
but that wasn't always the case.
In the 19th century they were hunted almost to extinction.
The greatest bag of all was claimed by colonial surveyor,
Major Thomas Rogers.
He boasted that he'd shot more than 1,300 before losing count.
One day in 1845, an old Buddhist priest sickened
by the slaughter pronounced this curse, white sahib,
thine hour is drawing near.
Thou shalt be consumed by the lightning of heaven
before thou canst raise thine cursed weapon again.
Terrified, the major gave up hunting,
but he couldn't contain his bloodlust for long.
On the way to shoot one more elephant
he was struck by lightning and killed instantly.
The priest's curse was even said to have
blighted the major's tomb.
Over the years, it was the only one in the cemetery
repeatedly struck by lightning.
But do curses placed on buildings and things
really work?
Do they have the power to harm and even to kill?
NARRATOR: Generations of owners of Fyvie Castle in Scotland
believe they do.
In the 13th century, they lived in fear of a prophet of doom
called Thomas the Rhymer.
He traveled the country casting curses on houses and families.
For a year before his arrival, Fyvie's gates
were left open in a misplaced gesture of welcome.
CHRISTOPHER HARTLEY: He arrived on the lawns
outside the castle.
And as soon as he got there, a tremendous storm blew up.
The trees began to sort of bend.
The bows creaked.
Twigs snapped.
But Thomas was in the very center of the storm.
And not one breath of wind caught his hair or whisker
of his beard was moved.
And then as the wind was hounding
around the turrets of Fyvie, the great gate
went slam in his face.
And so angry was he by this ill reception
that he placed the curse on the house.
NARRATOR: To lift his curse, Thomas
decreased that three stones must be collected together
and thrown off the property.
One lay underwater and the other two in the castle itself.
The stones were said to weep, but only one
has ever been found.
And it's carefully preserved in a bowl.
CHRISTOPHER HARTLEY: The curse is, in a sense, unbreakable.
And Thomas himself said of the three stones,
one is in the oldest tower unidentified.
One is in my lady's bow, which in the 17th century,
a room above her.
And then for the last 100 years or more,
the stone has actually resided in this room, the charter room.
And here it is next to me.
And the third stone is in the bottom
of the River Ithan, which is a boulder strewn riverbed.
And, as Thomas says, it is impossible to get.
We can't find it.
So they can never be brought together
and thrown off the property.
And the interpretation is difficult
and the popular belief is that the eldest son of the family
will not inherit.
The Forbes-Leith family, who owned this house,
it's curious that within their ownership of the house,
every single generation has been affected by this.
Lord Leith, he had two children, a son and a daughter.
And the son died of enteric fever in the Boer War in 1900
so that the daughter inherited.
And she had two sons, and the eldest one,
Arthur Forbes-Leith, was claimed in the 1914 in the First War
so that the second son inherited.
And that second son, Sir Ian, had
two sons of which the eldest died in Milan campaign in 1949.
The owner of Fyvie is the one who is supposed
to be under this curse.
But the house is no longer owned by a single life.
It's, in fact, owned by a National Trust of Scotland,
and therefore there is no elder son or any such thing.
So one wonders whether this has in fact turned
the tables on Thomas himself.
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NARRATOR: At Wrigley Field baseball ground,
the home team, the Chicago Cubs, has no such luck.
In fact, they've no luck at all.
For 50 years they've suffered the effects of a curse
imposed by a disgruntled fan.
[CHEERING]
The Cubs have consistently failed to get to the final
of the World Series.
In Major League Baseball there is no worse fate.
The curse began in 1945 during the World
Series between the Cubs and the Detroit Tigers.
William "Billy Goat" Sianis, a tavern owner in Chicago
had a mascot goat.
And he bought tickets for both himself and the goat
to attend the World Series.
And once he got to the ballpark the ushers
would not let in this so-called smelly goat
and offend the sensibilities of the well heeled fans.
So William "Billy Goat" Sianis put a curse on the Cubs
that they would not win until they let his goat in.
The Cubs then ended up losing the World Series to the Detroit
Tigers and have not been back to the World Series ever since.
NARRATOR: Every time the Cubs get
close, something goes wrong.
A pitcher gives up a home run for the wrong batter.
A fielder makes an error.
Once the entire pitching staff got injured at the same time.
Well every time a player come on the field,
he wants to give his best, he wants to give 100%.
But I think that deep down within their mind
they know that not winning a World Series,
not playing good baseball here at times
it's because of the goat.
GEORGE CASTLE: Well the odds on a team like the Cubs
somehow avoiding a World Series for the better part of 50 years
are just astronomical.
No Las Vegas odds maker would post them.
I did talk to one of the top odds makers
in Las Vegas two years ago.
And he said the odds are a million to one.
One million to one.
Unbelievable.
Something should have happened during that period of time
to have allowed the Cubs to get a lucky break
and get in to a World Series.
NARRATOR: Whenever things get desperate,
the Cubs invite a goat to Wrigley Field.
The first year they tried it, they won the division.
When they lost 13 home games in a row,
the goat was persuaded back.
The team won that day, but it didn't last.
If we're about 10 games from winning the division
we are going to bring the goat out
because we don't like to think about if the goats not here we
won't win a World Series.
So if we're that close, we're going to make sure,
because everybody knows we can't want
win a World Series unless we let the goat in the ballpark.
We're going to have that goat right here eating the grass out
here in Wrigley Field.
NARRATOR: The Cubs loyal fans like to drown their sorrows
whenever they lose a game.
It was from this bar that William "Billy
Goat" Sianis set out for Wrigley Field
on that fateful day in 1945.
The rejected goat's baleful eye keeps a watch on proceedings.
Chicago Cubs, you couldn't buy worse luck.
Ever since the curse in 1945, they haven't had a decent team.
In fact, I could pitch better than some of the people
they put on the team right now.
They're never going to lift the curse because the goat is dead.
There's only one goat and they blew it.
I'll support them forever.
But it's kind of like cheering for a horse with a bad leg
right now.
NARRATOR: There is no more glorious landscape
in northern England then these roving acres.
Yet the Bagot family of Levens Hall
lived for generations under a shadow cast
by an unthinking act of cruelty against a needy visitor.
HAL BAGOT (VOICEOVER): A lady who
was destitute came to the front door of the house
and she begged for food.
And she was told that people of her station
should go around to the back door where she would be fed.
She went and did as she was instructed
and she went down the back drive around towards the back door
and expired on the back drive of hunger.
And she said in her dying breath,
presumably, that the house would never have a male heir.
Not until a white fawn is born in the park.
And we have black fallow deer, so that's unusual.
And also that the River Kent at the bottom of the garden
would freeze.
And neither of those things happened for 200 years.
NARRATOR: The house in Levens passed down the female line.
The ladies of Levens were not empowered
to improve the estate, so it languished in limbo.
Amazing coincidences finally broke the curse.
The family have always kept scrapbooks since a long way
back.
The cuttings are here, which go on about the great frost
which happened in 1895.
And the photographs of the gardens under snow.
NARRATOR: Records confirm this was the coldest
year for half a century.
Locals were able to skate on Lake Windermere.
For the Bagots, the great freeze brought a miracle.
The River Kent froze over.
That same year, the herd of black fallow deer in the park
produced a single white fawn.
The proof is glued firmly into the pages
of the Bagot's scrapbook.
They were so excited that, in fact, they shot it.
It says, "the woods of Levens hail
the white fawn's birth, herald and symbol of the gift of God."
NARRATOR: The gift of God duly appeared in the shape
of the longed for son and heir.
Alan Desmond Bagot was born in that year.
And his picture eventually features
in this scrapbook with his mother and a little dog.
There it is.
NARRATOR: Ancient Egyptians use curses to protect
their departed loved ones.
As a matter of course, tombs were
inscribed with dire warnings.
The oldest curse of all is being cleaned.
We can see the first curse inscription ever occurred.
And it occurred by someone who was a draftsman, someone
who did the technical work.
And if you look here, now we can see the whole inscription.
The man is saying here, listen, all of you,
I never did anything wrong in my life.
Everything I do was perfect.
This is why the gods like me.
If anyone will disturb my tomb, what's going to happen to him,
the [INAUDIBLE], the hippopotamus, and the lion
will eat you.
But on the other side, his wife left
the same inscription exactly.
But she added here more, and she said the snake
and this scorpion will eat you.
The curse of Tutankhamun is the most famous of all.
It was said to have caused a whole spate
of sudden and inexplicable deaths
after the young king's tomb was discovered in the 1920s.
NARRATOR: At this theme park near Cairo,
tourists can do ancient Egypt in one day.
The high spot is a visit to a replica
of King Tutankhamun's tomb.
It's laid out just like the real one on the day it was opened.
And here we have the great sarcophagus of Tutankhamun.
The splendor that was 3,500 years ago.
One of the things that is a legend about the tomb
of Tutankhamun is the fact that it
was said that whoever went into the tomb
or touched this tomb would die.
And there was nothing that was found
in the tomb that would say that, but that was the legend.
NARRATOR: King Tutankhamen's tomb
was founded in 1922 by archaeologist, Howard Carter.
He told his sponsor in England, Lord Carnarvon,
of his wonderful discovery.
Carnarvon rushed to Egypt at once to examine the treasure.
But warning voices sounded.
Arthur Weigel, who was covering the story for the Daily Mail,
told Carnarvon he will be dead within six weeks.
Just over six weeks later, Carnarvon was indeed dead.
He had long suffered from ill health.
But the curse story took a firm hold.
The family seat of Highclere is now lived in by his grandson.
My grandfather died in Cairo as a result of cutting
himself with a razor.
The wound became infected.
He got septicemia and, alas, died at about 3 o'clock
in the morning.
All the lights in Cairo went out,
which was a strange phenomenon because when my father went
next morning to see Lord Allenby,
Lord Allenby apologized for all the lights going out in Cairo.
And he'd asked the chief engineer to investigate it.
But they never got to the bottom of that problem.
So that was one of the things.
And then at the same time as my grandfather died in Cairo,
allowing for the time difference,
his Jack Russell terrier gave a short growl
and died in the housekeeper's room in this house.
NARRATOR: Lord Carnarvon was not the only one said to have
been killed by the curse.
American railroad tycoon, Jay Gould,
died of pneumonia shortly after visiting the tomb.
And only months after seeing the find,
this Egyptian prince was shot dead by his wife.
But the most likely candidates were unscathed.
Howard Carter was first into the tomb and lived to 64.
Of the other experts who even ate lunch in pharaoh's tombs,
only one died young of natural causes.
So much for King Tut.
In fact, a recent studies suggests that the people who
visited the tomb actually had a greater
life expectancy than normal.
I hope that's true because I've been there myself.
However scientists have discovered that some tombs do
indeed harbor a threat to life which has nothing
to do with paranormal powers.
NARRATOR: Dr. Nazri Iskander is curator
of mummies at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
Study methods to preserve them has given him unique insights
into the legendary curses.
DR. NAZRI ISKANDER: I myself, when I enter any tomb,
I prefer to wait for some time outside tomb
after just opening the door slowly.
And then I prefer to check with small instruments
the percentage of oxygen inside the tomb before I enter
and work in it and to monitor all the time
during our working in it and to be all
the time on the safe readings.
This is very important.
This mummy is 4,500 years old.
And this is the oldest mummy in our Egyptian history now.
And this one preserved.
You can see here the features of the face
in very good condition and also all of his organs.
During the years of closing there
is always a reduction of the percentage of oxygen in it.
And this is also responsible of stopping
or of reducing the activation of the microbes and bacteria
and viruses.
And when you just open it for the first time,
always who will enter first they are
going to breath all of the air without oxygen
but with the microbes and bacteria and viruses.
These viruses will start to activate directly
and immediately in the lungs of the first one who
enters the tombs.
NARRATOR: The picture postcard English village of Tichborne
kept a curse at bay for 600 years.
But one slip up cost the lords of the manor
their original mansion and also their family name.
The curse has blighted the Tichborne
family because one of their ancestors
was cruel to his dying wife.
DENISE HENDRIE: This is the field around which, Mabella
Tichborne, my ancestor crawled just before she died in about
1188 when her husband refused her dying request to give
out bread to the poorer of the parish, which
was a long time ago.
So they were quite poor in those days.
And he said that he would give the produce of as much land
as she could crawl around while a burning
torch still glowed in her hand.
So she got up off her deathbed and crawled
around this I think 23 acres.
And then I suppose the torch went out and she died.
DENISE HENDRIE: She said that she wished
the bread of the land to be given to the people
every year in her memory on Lady Day, the 25th of March,
the day she died, and that this must go on.
If there was ever a break and the Tichbornes
stopped giving out this bread she laid a curse on the family.
She said that there would be a generation of seven sons
followed by seven daughters.
The house would fall down and the name would die out.
NARRATOR: In 1794 one reckless Tichborne
stopped the dole for a year.
Since then, his descendants have done
their best to repair the damage by faithfully
performing the ceremony.
During the Second World War, anonymous friends
kept the dole going by donating their flour coupons.
The head of the family was so relieved that he wrote
to the Times to thank them.
But it was all to no avail.
DENISE HENDRIE: I think you do have
to believe in the curse in the face
of the evidence that's been presented
even over all these years.
The house did fall down.
There were seven sons.
There were seven daughters.
And there are now no heirs.
NARRATOR: In New England, the dark deeds
ascribed to the witches of Salem are now history.
But behind the town's cheerful facade,
an ancient evil may still weave a sinister spell.
This man believes it nearly cost him his life.
Here lies the remains of George Corwin Esquire.
Born in England AD 1610.
Died in Salem AD 1665.
Other descendants of the Corwin are buried here,
including George Corwin, Jr. Who was the old sheriff of Essex
County during witch times.
The fellow that caused me all my problems here in Salem, as
well, many years later.
NARRATOR: Rob Cahill was proud to be elected
Sheriff of Essex County.
He headed a team of dedicated law men
until he was forced from office by a mysterious disease.
While I was in the hospital I had a long time to think.
And I of course thought about where on earth
could this terrible disease have come from?
Why me?
Even the doctors didn't know what it was.
And so I did think certainly of a curse and a curse that could
very well have gone back to the original curse of Sheriff
George Corwin.
NARRATOR: During the trials in 1692,
many innocent people were done to death.
One victim was Giles Corey.
For defending his wife from the witch hunt,
he himself was accused.
Sheriff Corwin personally imposed
the cruelest punishment.
Corey was pressed to death beneath enormous rocks.
At one point his tongue came out
of his mouth and the cruel Sheriff of Essex County,
George Corwin, took his cane and poked the tongue back in again.
And these are from eye witnesses who were at the scene.
Finally as he was dying under the pressure of the rocks,
Giles Corey spit out a curse.
And he cursed the Sheriff himself.
And he said, I curse Salem and I curse you, Sheriff Corwin.
And he died.
NARRATOR: Sheriff Corwin got his just desserts.
Shortly after the curse was laid, he died an early death.
The disease that killed him has plagued
his successors ever since.
NARRATOR: The Sheriff before me really died of a blood disease.
The Sheriff before him, his father died of a heart attack
in office.
The Sheriff before him died of a heart attack,
not in office but shortly thereafter.
There's something to the curse and nobody knows
that any better than I do.
ROBERT CAHILL: I survived, which I think is terrific.
But I went to a lot of hell and still do.
When I was at death's door, one of the valves in my heart
is replaced every 10 years with a pig's valve.
The present Sheriff, he looks kind of askance at me.
We joke about the curse sometimes,
but it was very real to me.
NARRATOR: Rob's wife, Sandy, is glad that his time as Sheriff
of Essex County is now over.
SANDY: I strongly believe in the curse.
I've seen it happen.
I don't want it to happen again.
If one of my family were to even think
about running for the office of Sheriff of Essex County,
I would do everything in my power
to convince them not to run.
Even a friend of mine, especially family members.
I believe that strongly in the curse.
I'm usually not very superstitious,
but I've gone through a lot of hell and a lot of sickness
and there's no explanation to the sickness.
I would not want to see any member of my family
or any good friend of mine go through what I went through.
And I would just say no, don't run.
Stay away from it.
As much as I enjoy these spooky tales,
they don't really bear serious investigation.
Proclaiming that there's a curse on a tomb to keep robbers away
might seem a good idea, though it certainly didn't
work for most of the pharaohs.
I suspect that coincidence and imaginative revision
of the facts by later storytellers
accounts for the other cases.
But if you ever do find yourself in a place with a curse on it,
don't hang around.
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