By Eleanor Blackwood
The word “hex” carries weight that the word “curse” does not quite share. While a curse can be formal, even ceremonial, and found in ancient texts alongside prayers to divine powers, a hex feels more intimate—smaller, more personal, wielded by people who know exactly whom they’re striking at. Yet both terms describe humanity’s enduring conviction that the spoken word holds power—that an ill-spoken phrase can travel across time and space, finding its target even in distant lands or centuries later.
Historically speaking, we are not so different from our ancestors when they muttered over graves or carved talismans into stone. The evidence of their superstitions survives in artifacts: the lead curse tablets (defixiones) found buried beneath Roman floors, inscribed with names and requests for divine intervention; the magical papyri of ancient Egypt where spells were copied onto delicate sheets to be read aloud by priests; and the hundreds of curse stones that survive from medieval Britain, their Latin or Gaelic incantations still visible today.
But perhaps no place better illustrates this phenomenon than the Greek and Roman world, which left us some of our most enduring stories about hexes. The Greeks called them katadesmoi—binding spells—or epodes, verses that were meant to be read over a victim or object. They believed these could work against lovers (to draw them back), against rivals in court (by binding their tongues), and even against enemies of the state (by inscribing their names on lead sheets and burying them underground, where the earth itself would crush and bind).
A particularly famous example comes from Athens, 431 BC. During the Peloponnesian War, the general Nicias was said to have hexed his political rivals by writing their names in Greek letters on a lead plate, wrapping it with iron nails, and dropping it into a deep pit while speaking specific words of binding. The curse was believed to work because the earth “knew” whom it had bound—what ancient sources called the power of place. Whether true or not, we now know that archaeological excavations have found dozens of such tablets buried in graves across Greece and Rome, confirming that ordinary people were indeed doing exactly what they claimed.
The Romans inherited this tradition from the Greeks but gave it their own character. Where Greek hexes often had an air of mystery and magic, Roman ones tended toward law—the lex or legal language familiar to anyone who has studied Latin. They developed entire systems of “curse tablets” that functioned almost as contracts with divine power: if you did X, then Y would happen. The most common formula was the “if-then” construction—”If I am true in my word and have done right by the gods, let so-and-so be bound.”
Consider the famous Curse of the Pharaoh, which has intrigued scholars for centuries. While modern archaeology has debunked many claims about Egyptian mummy curses (including those from Tutankhamun’s tomb), there is genuine evidence that ancient Egyptians believed in death-curses strong enough to protect their tombs from theft and damage. The Book of the Dead itself contains several such formulas, written to be spoken over the dead:
“I am Horus who avenges my father.”
“I am the serpent-fire that burns within.”
“Let my curse follow those who steal what is mine.”
What’s remarkable about these texts is how much they resemble modern legal language. They’re specific, precise, and written to be read aloud—which was important in cultures where oral performance mattered as much as written record. The spoken word was the spell; reading it was the act of casting it.
Moving into medieval Europe, we find a tradition that is both richer and more varied than any earlier period. Christian theologians did not abandon belief in hexes—they simply added their own theology to them. A church father like Augustine (354–430 AD) wrote about “hexes” as real powers but also argued they could be overcome by faith, prayer, and the cross.
Yet medieval people still believed in the efficacy of spoken words. We find this in stories throughout European history: a witch’s hex that would follow a family for generations; a priest who blessed his parishioners against sorcery; or the famous “witches’ marks” found on bodies buried in European churches—tiny scratches and bruises that were taken as evidence of their curse being absorbed by the person.
The most enduring stories from this period come out of England, where folklore remained particularly rich about hexes. Beatrix Potter herself recorded many such tales, drawing on local oral traditions that had survived through centuries even after Christianity arrived. She found examples of people who could “hex” their neighbors—often over property disputes or romantic rivalries—and the curse would be passed down through families like a kind of spiritual inheritance.
In France and beyond, similar stories abound: the famous hex of the Grande Roue (Great Wheel) in Provence, where a village was said to have been cursed by a Roman soldier’s spell that bound its inhabitants to their land; or the famous “hex” of the French Revolution, when many families lost all their lands and titles in what contemporaries called “a great hex upon nobility.”
In the modern world, we continue to encounter stories about hexes: from the curse of the Pharaoh’s tomb, to the famous death of a British nobleman after he had supposedly read aloud an ancient text incorrectly; from the curses carved into stone by Roman emperors (many of which survive today), to the modern-day “hexes” that people claim they’ve inherited or cast upon themselves.
What remains constant through all these centuries is our deep belief in the power of spoken words and written names—and our conviction that a curse can travel across time, finding its target even when it has been forgotten by most people living around it.
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