La Berta

Sailko

In Florence, Italy at the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore there is a strange feature named "La Berta". La Berta is a figure of a woman's head and stands out of place on the side of the church. There isn't much information on La Berta, but she's been there since medieval times. It's unsure why she was placed there, but there are theories or tales on how and why she's there. 

The most common lore is that the La Berta was petrified on September 16, 1327, and was cursed by Cecco d’Ascoli, an astrologer. His execution was a spectacle as people in groups were watching his procession. Some were watching from windows and balconies. On this day Cecco d'Ascoli was on his way to being executed and burned at the stake for heresy. In the procession, they would go through Via dei Cerretani, and he stopped to ask for some water. 

Berta was standing in the church window and told everyone to deny him water. She claimed he was an alchemist communicating with the Devil using water. That the devil would try to grant him immunity to his crimes and would be saved. During his execution he stared at the woman and cursed at her in Anger "You will never lift your head from there" The woman would petrify there.

Another and more logical theory is that the head is a memorial to a benefactor who had donated a bell to the church. The woman who donated was a greengrocer who had a fruit stall there. She did this so that the bell was used to chime whenever the city gates opened and closed. This may explain why she's positioned on the bell tower wall.

It's also theorized that she is actually was a Roman sculpture that was used as decoration. 

SOURCES:

Ancient Pages

Atlas Obscure

Antica Torre

Urban Legends: Romãozinho

Image created in Bing Creator

In Boa Sorte district, Pedro Afonso, Goiás, Brazil Romãozinho was born to a farmer and his wife. As the boy grew up he was said to be disobedient, cruel, and evil. He was known to get great pleasure from treating animals cruelly and killing plants.

Sometimes Romãozinho's mother would tell the boy to bring his father lunch. His father worked in a garden. One day even though Romãozinho did not want to bring the food to his father he did. On the way, he would eat the chicken and place it back into the lunch box. 

He would hand the lunchbox to Father as he was supposed to. His father was confused when he opened the box and his food was eaten. The father asked the boy what the bones meant. In response Romãozinho did not take responsibility instead he told him that his mother sent it to him that way on purpose. That the bones were the leftovers from his mother and the man who came over when his father wasn't home.  

This enraged his father and caused him to go back home immediately. Romãozinho would follow along knowing that his mother was going to be on the other end of his father's wrath. When they arrived home his father would pull out a dagger and began stabbing his wife. All while this was happening Romãozinho laughed enjoying his mother's "punishment". 

Knowing her son was the reason for all this and his pure joy from her death she would curse him with her dying breath. "You will never die! You won't know heaven or hell, or even rest until there's just one person left living on Earth!"

Romãozinho would continue to laugh especially after she died. This came true as he never grew up. It's said that he can be seen wandering the street causing mayhem. This however doesn't always mean he was entirely bad. In one story Romãozinho assists a woman in labor by scaring a local midwife chicken. This would help the midwife find the lone woman and help her give birth. 

SOURCES: 

Wikipedia

Myths and Folklore Wiki

The Wooden Man

 

The Egeskov Castle in Kværndrup, Denmark is home to the Wooden Man. He sleeps peacefully under the tower spire upon his pillow. Legend says the Wooden Man must stay or the house itself will suffer. It says that if he moves from his place the castle will sink into its moat on Christmas Night. Several owners believed the legend. They would spend Christmas away, but the current owners celebrate it and even leave a bowl of rice pudding for the Wooden Man. The Wooden Man is a doll the size of a child. 

Countess Nonni loaned the Wooden Man out to the National Museum of Demark. He was weighed, measured, and photographed. The loan agreement was only for 6 months but after 14 days Countess Nani asked for it back.  The castle creaked and groaned and the walls began to shake and once he restored to his pillow the castle became peaceful.

SOURCES:

Egeskov 

Obscura Atlas 

Curses: Cassies Story

 

Created in Imagine AI

Cassie's Story is a Cursed Chain Letter. I could not find much information on this chain letter this is What according to both sources was in the Chain Letter. 

WARNING THIS IS A CURSED CHAIN LETTER. IF YOU BELIEVE IN SUCH THINGS DO NOT READ ON.

Cassie and her friend were at home with her (Cassie’s) older sister. Her older sister was planning to go out and told them to not answer the door for anyone and to keep everything locked.

After her sister left, Cassie and her friend went online, looking at scary chain letters and laughing at how they weren’t ever true. They didn’t believe in any of the chains and went to bed. Unfortunately, they forgot to lock the doors.

Cassie’s friend had been murdered in the middle of the night. Quickly and frightened, Cassie reposted every chain letter they had read. After waking up in the morning, she saw something that looked like a face that was very red, staring back at her in the mirror. But she did not see her face. She ran down the stairs and looked in a different mirror. Still seeing the same face, she touched hers. She then looked at her hands and they were covered in something red and watery. Her skin was burned and bloody.

News around her town had told about the murder of Cassie’s friend. Cassie’s sister arrived home later that night, not yet seeing the news. Cassie told her sister what had happened, but her sister was in denial. Her sister reported that Cassie had gone insane and put her in a mental hospital.

Years passed, and Cassie died of a rare disease. Cassie came back for revenge on her sister and the murderer.

The murderer was never found. Nearly hours after Cassie’s revenge, her sister was found dead. The man who found Cassie’s sister bloody with stab wounds on the floor spotted a faint, red shadow. This was Cassie’s shadow. The man heard a whisper and could make out small words saying, “You didn’t see anything.”

If you don’t repost this chain letter to at least 6 people in the next 10 minutes, Cassie will haunt you too.

So, if you don’t want Cassie to haunt and murder you, then repost this as soon as possible.

SOURCES:

Gridlove

The Creepy Corner

Urban Legends: The Purple Mirror

A young girl was always sick because of her immunity impairment and her body was so weak she spent most of her teens in the hospital. One year for her birthday she received a cute hand mirror from her parents. She would treasure the mirror and would look into it every single day. 

The girl's favorite color was purple and she decided to paint the mirror purple. After it was painted purple and she could look into it she became strange. She was shocked and tried to desperately peel the purple paint off of it. It would not peel though and it was stuck. It was permanently purple and she could no longer look into it. 

Her illness would take for the worse maybe because she was distraught about her precious mirror. Her parents hoped that she would get better and bought another mirror, but she was not interested in it. 19 days before her 20th birthday she lay in her bed holding the purple mirror. She would look into it muttering "Purple mirror" repeatedly until her last breath.  

It's said that the grudge for the mirror lives in the words "purple mirror (murasaki kagam)" and children who remember it by their 20th birthday will meet with misfortune or death.

In another variation of the story as told in the Kansai area the girl was not sick. One day a girl was approaching her 20th birthday. She was excited about her coming-of-age ceremony and was looking forward to wearing her best clothes for it. This would never happen though as she had died in a traffic accident. 

Her family wanted to bury her with her treasured purple mirror. She carried it around with her everywhere, but when she died it wasn't on her person. When her parents looked in her room it was gone. So the funeral proceeded without it.

A short while after a terrible rumor about the dead girl began to spread. It was said that she was dating a boy with a bad reputation and this soured when she wanted to break up. This was why she had died and the missing mirror was a treasured gift from the boy. This however was not true. 

It had turned out that a close friend of hers started the rumor. When it came to that girl's coming-of-age ceremony arrived she disappeared. Inside her room was the missing purple mirror. It's said that her parents died from anxiety. 

In other variations of the story, it's until the person meets another age like 18 or 15, or sometimes when they graduate. Some say that she had an eating disorder and finally saw how she looked after painting the mirror.  All in all because of the unfortunate fate of a young woman and her mirror a curse began. 

SOURCES:

Kowabana

Scary For Kids

Curses: Curse of the Ninth Symphony

 

Gustav Mahler 1907

The Curse of the Ninth Symphony regards composers dying soon after completing their ninth symphony. It's said that after the ninth it's said that a musician is doomed to die and never make it to their tenth symphony. It's unknown why, but there is a shocking amount of classical musicians who have died before their tenth symphony was finished. Now it can take years or even decades to write nine symphonies, and some of them may just be due to old age, but there are many early deaths also. There are however alot of musicians who've made more that just nine symphonies.

Example of Musicians believed to be victims of the Ninth Curse:

• Ludwig van Beethoven (1827)
• Anton Bruckner (1896)
• Antonín Dvořák (1904)
• Gustav Mahler (1911)
• Ralph Vaughan Williams (1958)

SOURCES:

Wikipedia

Classic FM

Savage Content

New York Public Radio

Urban Legends: Carmen Winstead

Carmen Winstead is the 17-year-old ghost that was murdered by schoolmates around 2000. She was freshly new to Indiana and 5 girls trying to embarrass her pushed her down a sewer opening accidentally killing the girl. The 5 girls would lie and say she accidentally stepped in it. To get her revenge a cursed chain mail in 2006 that if the sender has to acknowledge her murder and send it to others on social media (MySpace). If they failed they would die in the sewer from Carmen's wrath.

Example of Letter From Snopes 

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"She was pushed

About 6 years ago in Indiana, Carmen Winstead was pushed down a sewer opening by 5 girls in her school, trying to embarrass her in front of her school during a fire drill. When she didn’t submerge the police were called. They went down and brought up 17 year old Carmen Winstead’s body, the neck broke hitting the ladder, then side concrete at the bottom. The girls told everyone she fell… They believed them.

FACT: 2 months ago, 16 year old David Gregory read this post and didn’t repost it. When he went to take a shower he heard laughter from his shower, he started freaking out and ran to his computer to repost it, He said goodnight to his mom and went to sleep, 5 hours later his mom woke up in the middle of the night cause of a loud noise, David was gone, that morning a few hours later the police found him in the sewer, his neck broke and his face skin peeled off.

If you don’t repost this saying

“She was pushed”
or “They Pushed her down a sewer”

Then Carmen will get you, either from a sewer, the toilet, the shower, or when you go to sleep you’ll wake up in the sewer, in the dark, then Carmen will come and kill you.

About 6 years ago in Indiana, Jessica Smith was pushed down a sewer opening by 5 girls in her school, trying to embarrass her in front of her school during a fire drill. When she didn’t submerge then police were called. They went down and brought up 17 year old Jessica Smith’s body, she broke her neck hitting the ladder, then hit her side on concrete at the bottom. The girls told everyone she fell … They believed them.

FACT: 2 months ago, 16 year old Ron Anderson read this post and didn’t repost it. When he went to take a shower he heard laughter from his shower, he started freaking out and ran to his computer to repost it, He said goodnight to his mom and went to sleep, 5 hours later his mom woke up in the middle of the night cause of a loud noise, Ron Anderson was gone, that morning a few hours later the police found him in the sewer, his neck broke and his face skin peeled off

If you don’t repost this saying

“She was pushed”
or “They Pushed her down a sewer”

Then Jessica will get you, either from a sewer, the toilet, the shower, or when you go to sleep you’ll wake up in the sewer, in the dark, then Jessica will come and kill you.

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There's no evidence of  Carmen ever-existing especially a Carmen Winstead that died in Indiana in such a way in 2000. 

SOURCES:

Scary Urban Legends

Snopes

Creepypasta Wiki

Curses: The Chained Oak

Near to the village of Alton, England, there is an old oak tree wrapped in chains on a footpath to the left of the Chained Oak B&B. The tree is known as The Old Oak and according to legend, it holds a deadly legend for a family.

One autumn day in the 1800s the Earl of Shrewsbury was on his way to the Alton Towers in a horse and coach. Suddenly there was an old woman who showed up in front of them. The coach would stop to find out why the woman was there. The woman would then ask them for a coin. The Earl would ignore and cruelly dismiss the poor woman. She would then tell the Earl that she had cursed him and each time a branch fell off of the old oak tree one of his family members would die. The Earl refused to listen to her silly curse and continued on his way.

That same night a violent storm would happen. It would cause a single branch from the cursed tree to fall. A member of the Earl's family would die mysteriously that night. The Earl now believing in the curse would order servants to chain every branch together to prevent branches from falling and the premature death of a family member.


There are some variants from retelling the tale. Sometimes it's an old man, sometimes the branch falls on the Earl's son with the old woman watching, and in some tellings, the Earl takes the branch and does experiments on it to find a way to end premature deaths. But did it happen?

The legend may have been around since 1821 which would make it the 15th Earl of Shrewsbury, Charles Talbot. But other sources say that the legend has been around since the 1840s which would make it the 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, John Talbot. 

Now if it was John Talbot this legend does not match what he was known as. He was remembered as "Good Earl John", he had a very good reputation of being charitable. He supported and helped communities build in the Midlands. He was known to have supported schools and churches, and even helped build new Catholic chapels in the Midlands. He was also known to help build almshouses for the poor and elderly in Alton. 

He did have 4 deaths of family members after the 1840s, but none of them was sudden or mysterious. His youngest daughter Lady Gwendoline Catherine Talbot died in 1840 at 22 in Rome by Scarlet Fever and 3 of her children died shortly after from measles.  Making it unlikely that the man was him if some of the legends were true.

On April 9, 2007, one of the main branches from the tree fell off and no one from the Talbot family mysteriously died. 

The tree may have been chained in an attempt to preserve it. The 15th and 16th Earls extended Alton Towers and planted many new trees. The old trees like the chained oak were greatly prized and since it was in a highly visible place it was chained to keep it from collapsing under its own weight.

SOURCES: 

Wikipedia

BBC

Alton Towers

Atlas Obscura

Oddity Central

Ramblers Retreat

Cryptids: Futakuchi-Onna

Futakuchi-Onna is a Japanese Yokai characterized by the two functioning mouths on her head. She has one in the front and one in the back that her hair covers. It’s said that the second mouth forms on the back of the head of a woman who typically eats very little. It's described as hurting and split happens in the back of the head where lips, teeth, tongue, and hunger forms. The mouth in the back begins to mutter awful things to her and it begins controlling her hair at its will to feed itself.

In one tale the Futakuchi-Onna is married to a miser who noticed she never ate anything. Even though she never ate but food in the home disappeared. One day he pretends to leave the home to see the catches her sleeping and undid her hair tie to see a second mouth. Her hair began to scoop rice and placed it inside the hideous mouth. He planned to divorce her, but she found out. She tried to trap him in a bathtub and

Another tale with the Futakuchi-Onna is a woman allowed her stepdaughter to starve to death. 49 days after the step daughter's death the woman felt a pain in the back of her head and a mouth former. the stepdaughter's voice could be heard and beg for food. The other mouth would scream if not fed and the stepmother had to live in constant hunger because of this. 

SOURCES:

Cryptid Wiki

Yokai

Wikipedia

Curse of the Petrified Forest

Picture Taken by Kumar Appaiah

There lies a forest in Northeastern Arizona between Navajo County and Apache County. This forest is called the Petrified Forest National Park and got its name from the petrified trees scattered inside it. It was designated a National Monument in 1906 and a National Park in 1962.

It's illegal to take anything out of the Forest as a way to try and preserve it. A result of being caught stealing something from the Park will get you a nice fine. Whether or not you get caught you also get the price of a curse if that's your thing. Neither the fine nor the curse prevents people from stealing from the park anyway.

It's said that if you take a rock no matter how small no matter how innocent your intent is bad luck will soon follow. Some people claimed pets died, family member or themselves got injured soon after and bad luck just follows until the rocks are returned to their home.
   
There is a pile called the conscious pile that rangers termed returned rocks and items from the forest. Now if the rocks are to be returned in order to not contaminate the scientific research area. Each one returned and there are at least 1,200 letters some dating back to 1934. Each return has been blamed for causing bad luck or intense guilt in the lives of the thieves. 


SOURCES:
Gizmodo
ZOCALO
New Scientist