Bonus A to Z: Medieval Curse Breaking

I asked the Grok, a generative AI, the following:

Imagine a couple of outrageous and humorous medieval methods of removing a curse that might involve nakedness, mud, or animals.

All generative AI is non-determinative and largely a sophisticated random number machine. I was pleased with the “absurd and comical medieval" methods of curse breaking. Enjoy.

The Naked Mud-Wallowing Goat Dance

To lift a curse, the afflicted soul must strip bare under a full moon, slather themselves head to toe in thick, stinking bog mud, and then chase a particularly ornery goat around a village square. The trick? You’ve got to wrestle the goat into the mud with you, roll around together three times, and bleat loudly to “confuse the curse spirits" into fleeing. The villagers would probably gather with torches, half to cheer, half to laugh, as you and the goat emerge looking like swamp monsters—curse hopefully gone, dignity definitely lost.

The Bare-Bottomed Chicken Smack

Picture this: the cursed individual drops their trousers, hops on one leg through a muddy field, and whacks themselves on the backside with a live chicken—feathers flying everywhere. The idea is that the chicken’s frantic clucking “shakes the curse loose," while the mud acts as a “holy paste" to trap it. For extra potency, you’d shout nonsense like “Begone, ye hex, ye fowl fiend!” every third hop. By the end, you’re filthy, the chicken’s furious, and the curse might just be too embarrassed to stick around.