Cursed figurine alleged to have moved unaided
Nile Pennington got far more than he bargained for when he shelled out for a rather nondescript, cheap looking figurine from a charity warehouse on the Balearic party island of Ibiza, where he was holidaying.
“No accounting for taste”, as the saying goes.
She just has this menacing aura, its eyes always seem to follow you and give off the vibe that it’s up to something
Pennington now claims the statue “cursed” and that since he welcomed the littl’un into his Sheffield home as a new member of his family, he has seen it move unaided:
“We always like to collect weird and unusual holiday souvenirs and when we came across this little lady in a charity warehouse, we knew we had to buy her. I’ve since seen it moving. She just has this menacing aura, which is one of the reasons we were initially drawn to the statue while browsing in Ibiza. Its eyes always seem to follow you and give off the vibe that it’s up to something.
Some family members won’t even sit in the same room as her as she spooks them
Pennington went on to say, with an audible catch in his voice:
“I keep her in the lounge and pray that she can’t get upstairs. I was once sat at home after work, and she fell off the mantel piece and broke her toe – it scared the life out of me. She’s definitely not everyone’s cup of tea and I have some family members that won’t even sit in the same room as her as she spooks them.”
However, he bizarrely concluded, “She’s one of my favourite trinkets, so she’s not going anywhere anytime soon.”
Speaking of ‘trinkets’ and curses, witness this SNL sketch from SNL:
Cursed figurine subliminally inspired by Trilogy of Terror?
I find the story rather hard to take seriously, and wonder whether Mr Pennington was either directly, or subliminally inspired, by the story Amelia, from the 1975 portmanteau motion picture, Trilogy of Terror.
Briefly; Amelia lives alone in a NYC high rise. She tells her pushy mum she’s cancelling their evening together in order to see her anthropologist boyfriend, for whom as a birthday gift she has bought a creepy wooden fetish doll. A scroll with the doll claims the gold chain around it entraps the spirit of a demonic Zuni hunter named "He Who Kills".
As Amelia leaves the room, the gold chain falls off.
The full segment:
Fetish figures are mostly seen as malefic items supposed to bewitch people, similar to Voodoo. Actually though, many (but NOT all) of these items are made to help their owner find a solution to a problem which could be bad luck, infertility, or other hang-ups, and grant a form of protection. Fetish figures can be found in Cameroon, Togo, Benin and Nigeria, often made of plants, wood, bones and liquids, including blood...
There are other recent cases of ‘cursed’ dolls or figurines in the UK; in October 2024 the New York Post reported:
Mom buys the ‘most possessed doll in UK’ — and what ensues is beyond creepy: ‘Fills my bones with dread’
The paper went on, “Paranormal hunter Candice Collins of Cornwall was warned against purchasing “Norman” — a “demonic,” baby-faced child’s doll that went viral last year when its previous owner, Christian Hawksworth, put it up for sale after experiencing a string of bad luck that he attributed to the toy.
Hawksworth bought the doll for about $4 at an antique store — then suffered an exploding appendix, got shot, had car trouble and saw his salary severely slashed.
Collins, 42, purchased the toy from Hawksworth for $260 on eBay and added it to her haunted-doll collection — and it didn’t disappoint.
“As soon as I opened the box, the room went freezing cold, and a heavy depression filled the air. I knew then there was definitely something attached to this doll.”
She put ‘Norman’ in a glass box with some holy water, but he still, “fills my bones with dread.” Collins ‘started having nightmares where she wakes up in a panic, feeling as if she’s being attacked by “an unseen figure.” She says she’s felt her hand be bitten during the night and has “heard an evil voice calling my name in my sleep.” Even more terrifying, she’s heard her 3-year-old son speaking with the toy, she said. “I can hear my little boy talking to someone. He also starts laughing, which is very strange,” she said.
Similar to the doll’s previous owner, Collins said her health has also taken a turn for the worse since welcoming Norman into her home. “I have arthritis, headaches and also random bruises that come up on my body for no reason. I’ve got a scratch on my back that looks like deep claw marks, too. My partner, Nick, needs a hip replacement, as that has taken a turn for the worse,” she said.
But, as with Pennington, Candice has no plans to rid herself of the object, saying, “I want to prove that there is life after death and that not all objects are evil, some just need help. But I’ve got to keep my wits about me, as I don’t know what could happen next.”
Barmy, or more likely attention-seeking hustling, if you ask me.
Another case for The Dolly Files - August 2024
The owner of one of Britain's 'most-haunted' dolls claims the toy hates men so much she keeps attacking them. Lee Steer, 37, from Rotherham, had been conducting a paranormal investigation with his partner Sarah Carter, 32, in the 'bridal doll room' of his museum, The Haunted Objects Museum, last week when he began to feel a burning sensation on his neck. After struggling to carry on with the experiment, Sarah took a look under his shirt and was horrified to find red scratches all over her partner's back.
Solution? Don’t run a Haunted Objects Museum; or maybe the grift is too obvious, kids.
And yes, there are others
In Hereford’s Museum, a cursed doll is amongst the collection of artefacts. Dated to around the late nineteenth century, it was discovered at 21 East Street in 1960.
The object was found with a note: “Mary Ann Ward I act this spell upon you from my whole heart wishing you to never rest nor eat nor sleep the rest part of your life. I hope your flesh will waste away and I hope you will never spend another penny I ought to have. Wishing this from my whole heart.”
Charming.
Cheshire's real-life Addams family? - again, from August 2024, obviously a busy month for animated dollies
An oddball/publicity-seeking British family adopted their very own haunted dolly. JP Kenny, 34, and Kymmi Jeffrey, 38, and their children Snow and Pebble welcome a new member to their family: Annie, one of the most spooky such objects in the UK.
Since bringing her home, the family reports experiencing incredibly odd activity throughout the house, such as living room doors slamming, star-shaped beings appearing, and a generally negative feeling about everyone.
This year, ‘Annabelle’, the original Grand Dame of possessed dollies, apparently staged an escape from the Warrens’ Occult Museum in Monroe, Connecticut, where she had previously languished behind Holy Water/Crucifix protected glass.
Fortunately, the story was incorrect, being merely a promotional device, but a lot of New England folk were mightily scared at the time.
But this was reported recently - the sudden death of haunted Annabelle doll handler Dan Rivera:
Is the Haunted Doll phenomenon a craze in the manner of 2016’s ‘Killer Clowns’ and the much earlier Salem Witches?
Another creepy ‘cursed doll’
Down the road from me, The Raven and Broomstick shop and museum boasts a particular glass-encased resident ‘cursed doll’ that owner claimed to me “peers” at her when she’s alone in the shop...
Stephen Arnell’s novel THE GREAT ONE is available on Amazon Kindle now:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-One-Secret-Memoirs-Pompey-ebook/dp/B0BNLTB2G7
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