In 1525, the Archbishop of Glasgow, Gavin Dunbar wrote a whopping 1,069-word curse on the Reiver people, who were pillaging the district. “I curse their head and all the hairs of their head,” said the archbishop. “I curse their face, their brain, their mouth, their nose, their tongue, their teeth. May the thunder and lightning which rained down upon Sodom and Gomorrah, rain down upon them.”
The Reiver withered and the curse of Gavin slept until 2001, when, as part of the millennium celebrations, the city council asked Gordon Young, a local artist and descendent of the Reiver, to carve 383 words of Gavin’s curse on a stone. It was placed in a gloomy underpass between Carlisle Castle and the Tullie House museum and then, if you believe, Carlisle fell victim to the curse once more.
There has been a cacophony of misfortune; foot-and-mouth disease, two floods, a fire at Rathbone’s Bakery, job losses at Cavaghan & Gray, and the footballing relegation of Carlisle United
The Bishop of Carlisle, the Rt Rev Graham Dow, favours redemption. He has asked the current Archbishop of Glasgow, Mario Conti, to “lift” the curse and has called on Conti to visit the city. Conti’s spokesman has promised, “The Archbishop would consider carefully any representation made to him by the civic or religious authorities in Carlisle,” adding: “Clearly the city has had a run of bad luck in recent years. Whether this is due to a 500-year-old stone is less certain.”
The artist himself, Gordon Young, is upset by the accusation that he would do anything to harm Carlisle United. “If I thought my sculpture would have affected one Carlisle United result,” he says angrily, “I would have smashed it myself years ago.”
Logging requirements
To log this virtual you must complete the following task, I will delete any logs that do not comply with this requirement.
These logging requirements have changed since the cache was first placed.
1. There are three words (greater than 1 letter) on the stone that are entirely in UPPERCASE, please send me a message detailing these words, Please note that the answer is not "A MILLENIUM PROJECT"
OPTIONAL - Please feel free to upload a picture in your log showing the stone in the background, PLEASE DO NOT SHOW ANY OF THE ANSWERS TO TASK 1 IF YOU DO THIS.
Please log straight away, I will get in touch with you if there are any issues.
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Virtual Rewards 3.0 - 2022-2023
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between March 1, 2022 and March 1, 2023. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 3.0 on the Geocaching Blog.