Curse

Figures that bear it

A model judged each figure against its own description, one term at a time. Is: the figure is, or is partly, this thing. Bears: it carries the thing or is marked by it. What a figure does is filed under motifs and powers. Open "why" for the sentence the judgement rests on.

• Gorgon bears Greek mythology
  why

  This complexity adds depth to their character, suggesting that Gorgons might possess a range of emotions and motivations beyond mere monstrosity, perhaps even experiencing loneliness and isolation due to their curse.

• Headless Mule bears Brazilian folklore
  why

  Some versions of the legend claim that the curse can be broken if a brave individual removes the bridle from the mule's mouth, though this act is perilous and rarely attempted.

• Kabandha bears Indian folklore
  why

  The story most consistently told is that Kabandha's monstrous transformation came from a confrontation with the god Indra: in one telling he quarrelled with or challenged Indra directly, while another attributes his deformity to a sage's curse, but both converge on the same result, that a blow from Indra drove his head and legs into his own body, leaving him swollen and misshapen with his single eye and huge mouth exposed on his torso and his arms grown to extraordinary length.

• Lamia bears Greek mythology
  why

  In Greek mythology, Lamia is a queen transformed into a child-devouring daemon after Hera's curse destroys her children, becoming the prototype for the many "lamia" bogeys later invoked across the Mediterranean to frighten children.

• Loup-Garou bears French folklore
  why

  The loup-garou is the werewolf of French folklore, a living person who walks by night in the shape of a wolf — whether by curse, pact, or neglected religious duty — whose legend travelled with French settlers to Québec and Louisiana.

• Rokurokubi bears Japanese folklore
  why

  In many stories the condition is explained as a curse or karmic consequence, sometimes tied to a broken religious precept in a past life, and it is frequently discovered only by accident, as when a husband or houseguest wakes in the night to find the sleeper's neck stretched impossibly long or the head altogether missing from the pillow.

• Rougarou bears American folklore
  why

  Accounts describe it variously as a man cursed to become a wolf-like beast, a person who transforms voluntarily through sorcery, or the victim of a curse passed from one sufferer to another, and its name is spelled and pronounced many ways across the region, including Rugaru and Roux-Ga-Roux, reflecting the oral, French-derived nature of the tradition.