CURSES AND MALEDICTIONS


Nobody really knows where the word "curse" came from. We can trace it back to the Anglo-Saxon "curs," but its origins beyond that are obscure, and cognates are unknown. In Anglo-Saxon, however, the meaning is quite clear. A "curs" is an imprecatory prayer or malediction. The idea of a "curse" in modern times is akin to hex, but the primary meaning of the word is the prayer or calling itself.

This is reflected in modern speech, where "to curse" also simply means to use foul language, as seen in the vernacular "cussing." Truly, "shit," "fuck" and "piss" are hardly curses, but "damn" is. To say "damn you" is to curse someone to hell. "Damn" as an exclaimant is generally a shortening of "damn it" and is therefore also a curse. First vain uses of the divine names were added to the category, then foul langauge in general.


While we are discussing cursing, it would only be fitting to discuss swearing, as the concept has come up repeatedly. Today, "curse word" and "swear word" are quite synonymous. They were obviously not always so, but we might be surprised to see how intertwined the two words really are.

Eric Partridge, in Origins, hypothetically links "swear" with the Latin "sermon" in their root origin. American Heritage traces it back to a theoretical Proto-Indo-European root *swor, meaning speak. Even if all this were to turn out false, the connection of swearing with speech can hardly be contested, as its primary meaning is to declare something, generally by oath. We can trace the word back through the Middle English "sware" to the Anglo-Saxon "sweran." It is related to "answer," which literally means to swear against. The connotations of swearing can be seen in the concepts of having to "answer" to someone or being "answerable" for your actions. We can also compare this to the Old Norse "svara," meaning to answer.

In Old Norse, we see "sveria" (sværiæ in East Old Norse), meaning to swear, but used almost exclusively as in the phrase to swear an oath. In Norwegian, by contrast, we see that "svergja" can be used to mean both to swear an oath and to use foul language. Similarly, the New High German "schwören" can also take both meanings.

"Swear" would hardly interest us here at all, were it not for one strange fact. We see it used in the sense of curse or maleficiate in the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf. Following the Seamus Heaney translation, we read of Grendel that "He had conjured the harm from the cutting edge of every weapon." The operative word of the text (line 804, translated as "conjured" by Heaney) is "forsworen," which Michael Alexander glosses with "forswerian - to rob of power by a spell."

The normal definition of "forsworen" is to commit perjury. That definition remains with " foreswear" to this day. It is, however, impossible to translate the word as thus in this context. While this is an isolated incident, it still causes us to pause and reconsider the implications of the word.


We mentioned earlier that the original meaning of a "curse" was a "malediction," so it would be natural for us to move on to explore that term also. While we can use a reversal of definitions to say that a "malediction" is a "curse," it is more telling to say that the action of "malediction" is the uttering of a curse. We can break the word down into two main components. "Diction" means speech or speaking but can also mean the rendition of words in singing, as regards to pronunciation, according to an old Webster's dictionary. The first component of the word, "mal-," simply means bad or evil, as in our modern "malific," meaning productive of disaster or evil. Putting these components together we see that a "malediction" is a calling of evil upon someone. The Latin phrase which "malediction" is derived from is a "male dictum," which can be broken down the same way.

While we are on the subject, it should be worthy of note that the result of a "curse" or "malediction" is a "malifice." The former two words really pertain to the "incantation" itself, but the effect of such is a "malifice." If one puts a "curse" or "spell" on someone, which is not based on utterance, but on action, such as a poppet or a so called "voodoo doll," it should be properly referred to as a "maleficiation." The action of placing a maleficiation on someone is to "maleficiate," which more simply means "to make evil," by its etymology.