Some Interesting Curses

The hosts of Stuff You Should Know open with a confession: they themselves carry a curse. Every time they appeared on a TV show, that show got canceled — Soledad O'Brien's program, Jeff Probst's daytime talk show, and their own series all met the same fate within weeks. "I'm suddenly glad we never went on Conan O'Brien," one of them notes. This self-deprecating admission sets the tone for an episode that treats curses not as supernatural phenomena to be believed in, but as cultural artifacts worth examining — legends that reveal something about how people make sense of misfortune, coincidence, and contested history.

The Curse of Brunswick Springs

The first curse comes from Brunswick, Vermont, where six mineral springs — each with a different chemical profile, from magnesium to arsenic — have long been considered sacred by the Abenaki people, who have lived in the area for roughly 12,000 years. According to oral tradition, during the French and Indian War, the Abenaki brought a wounded French soldier to the springs, where he was miraculously healed. The soldier later returned, took over the springs, and began bottling and selling the water. When the Abenaki confronted him, violence broke out, resulting in the death of a man and his infant child. The wife and mother of the victims then cursed the springs: anyone who tried to exploit them for prof