Wednesday Weird: Dead Man's Chair

Today we have another cursed item. Specifically a chair.

In 1702, Thomas Busby was convicted of murdering his father-in-law in North Yorkshire and sentenced to death by hanging. After he was hanged his body was dipped in pitch and strung up in a gibbet.
Before he died, though, he cursed to death anyone who sat in his chair at the next door inn/pub.

The chair remained in the pub for centuries, and guests would often dare one another to sit in the cursed seat. During World War II, airmen from a nearby base frequented the pub, and locals noticed that the soldiers who sat in the chair would never return from war.

The pub owner changed the name to Busby's Stoop, since a cursed chair was good publicity.

 

They even had a fake noose hanging outside next to the pub.

In 1967, two Royal Air Force pilots sat in the chair, only to crash their truck into a tree just after they left. In 1970, a mason sat down in the chair and died that same afternoon by falling into a hole at his job site. A year later, a roofer who sat in it died after the roof he was working on collapsed. When the pub's cleaning lady tripped and fell into the chair, she died shortly afterwards from a brain tumor. 

Finally the pub owner moved the chair into the basement. Unfortunately, even in storage the chair claimed another victim. After a delivery man took a quick rest while unloading packages in the store room, he was killed in a car accident that same day. 

The chair is attributed to 63 deaths and eventually, the pub owner donated the chair to the local museum in 1972. The museum displays the chair by hanging on the wall so that no one can sit in it by mistake again. 

Thoughts or theories?

Wednesday Weird: The Dybbuk Box

A dybbuk box is a wine cabinet that's purportedly haunted by a dybbuk, a malevolent spirit from Jewish folklore, capable of haunting and possessing a person.

A particular dybbuk box became famous (there's a book written about it, and it inspired the 2012 movie The Possession) when it was listed on ebay with a frightening backstory.

In September 2001 an antique buyer hit up a Portland auction, where the belongings of a 103 year old woman were being sold. The woman's granddaughter told the antique dealer that her grandmother had been Jewish and the only member of her family who had survived a concentration camp. When she emigrated to the US she only brought three things with her, one of which was her wine cabinet.

The granddaughter told the dealer that her grandmother always kept the box hidden and said that it should never be opened because it contained a dybbuk. She requested that the box be buried with her, but that went against Jewish tradition, so her family didn't comply.

The antique dealer bought the cabinet. Inside he found some old pennies, a lock of hair, a goblet and a candleholder.

He placed it in his workshop in the basement. Almost immediately strange things started to happen, including lights flickers, light bulbs shattering, strange smells (like cat urine) coming from nowhere, and terrible sounds emerging from the basement.

Because the dealer was either dumb as fuck, or smart(?) he gave the box to his mother, who shortly after had a stroke. At the hospital she spelled out a message: H-A-T-E-G-I-F-T.
He tried to gift it a few more times, but it was always returned to him because the recipients either didn't like it, or felt it was ominous.

The dealer began to sleep poorly and have nightmares. He would also catch glimpses of shadow people darting around. Once, when he was doing research about the box online, he fell asleep at his desk. When he woke, he felt breathing on the back of his neck. He turned and saw a large shadow flying away from him down the hall.

That's when he decided to list the cabinet on ebay.

It migrated to different owners before Jason Haxton, author of the book about the box and curator of a medical museum in Missouri, purchased the box. He resealed the box and stored it at a secret location, which he will not reveal.

So there you go! I haven't seen the movie, but I remember the previews and it looked pretty good. Thoughts? Theories?

Wednesday Weird: The Woman From Lemb Statue

Though there are many different objects that have been considered haunted or cursed throughout history, few are said to bring on as much death to its owners as the Women From Lemb idol.

Nicknamed "The Goddess of Death," The Women from Lemb is a statue carved from pure limestone that was discovered in 1878 in Lemb, Cypruss. The item dates back to 3500 B.C., and is believed to represent a goddess, similar to a fertility idol.

The first owner was Lord Elphont. Within a six-year period after becoming the owners, All seven members of the Elphont family died in supposedly mysterious manners (there's no real record for what their deaths entailed).

The next owner was Ivor Manucci., whose entire family died within a four- year period. Then Lord Thompson-Noel obtained the idol, and also lost his family in a four-year period.

After this time the statue fell into obscurity for several years, but mysteriously was found in a cellar cabinet from where it had ‘disappeared’ from before.
        
Sir Alan Biverbrook was next to purchase the statue. Shortly after, his wife and two daughters died from a strange illness, followed by Sir Alan Biverbrook a short time later. Sir Biverbrook had two remaining sons and though they weren't big believers in the occult, they were scared enough by the sudden and strange deaths of four of their family members that they decided to donate the statue to the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh, where it remains today.
Though the curator claimed not to put stock into the idea of curses or haunted objects, the chief curator where the statue was placed took ill and died within the year. No one has handled the statue since and the item is safely under glass and protected from human hands

Some people theorize that the statue contains a poison or a disease-based fungus or virus on or within the limestone, which I think is always a possibility. But who really wants to test it, amiright?

Thoughts? Theories?