e ruin of the poor.
And or an age is come and gane,
Or the trees o'er the chimly-taps grow green,
We kinna wen where the house has been.

The curse that alighted on this fair mansion at length accomplished
its destructive work, because nowadays there is not a vestige of it
remaining, nor has there been for these many years; indeed, so
complete was the collapse of this ill-fated house, that its site could
only be identified by the avenue and lanes of trees; while many clay
cottages, on the other hand, which were built previously, long
remained intact. Equally fatal, also, was the curse uttered against
the old persecuting family of Home of Cowdenknowes--a place in the
immediate neighbourhood of St. Thomas's Castle.

Vengeance, vengeance! When and where?
Upon the house of Cowdenknowes, now and evermair!

This anathema, awful as the cry of blood, is generally said to have
been realised in the extinction of the family and the transference of
their property to other hands. But some doubt, writes Mr. Robert
Chambers,[3] seems to hang on the matter, "as the Earl of Home--a
prosperous gentleman--is the lineal descendant of the Cowdenknowes
branch of the family which acceded to the title in the reign of
Charles I., though, it must be admitted, the estate has long been
alienated."

Love and marriage, again, have been associated with many imprecations,
one of which dates as far back as the time of Edmund, King of the East
Angles, in connection with his defeat and capture at Hoxne, in
Suffolk, on the banks of the Waveney not far from Eye. The story, as
told by Sir Francis Palgrave in his Anglo-Saxon History, is this:
"Being hotly pursued by his foes, the King fled to Hoxne, and
attempted to conceal himself by crouching beneath a bridge, now called
Goldbridge. The glittering of his golden spurs discovered him to a
newly-married couple, who were returning home by moonlight, and they
betrayed him to the Danes. Edmund, as he was dragged from his hiding
place, pronounced a malediction upon all who should afterwards pass
this bridge on their way to be married. So much regard was paid to
this tradition by the good folks of Hoxne that no bride or bridegroom
would venture along the forbidden path."

That inconstancy has not always escaped with impunity may be gathered
from the following painful story, one which, if it had not been fully
attested, would seem to belong to the domain of fiction rather than
truth: On