The Cursed Sing — The Myths Behind the Veil
When the Muses open the Veil, their song does not summon heroes — it calls the forgotten, the punished, and the misunderstood.
They come forward one by one: mortals who defied gods, gods who punished mortals, and those caught somewhere between.
Each carries a curse. Each carries a truth.
The Veil Opens (The Muses)
Born of Zeus and Mnemosyne, the Muses are the nine voices of creation: memory given form. They preside over art, history, dance, poetry, and the stars — the bridge between divine inspiration and human expression.
When they open the Veil, the world quivers. Their harmony cuts through time, inviting the Cursed to step forth and tell their stories again. The air thickens with remembrance, and the silence before the first voice feels like the breath before a storm.
I Was the Temple (Medusa)
Medusa was not always a creature of stone and serpents.
She was mortal, beautiful, and devoted — a priestess in the temple of Athena, sworn to chastity. But Poseidon, the god of the sea, saw her and desired her. In Athena’s own temple he took what was sacred, and in divine fury, Athena struck Medusa — not her violator — with punishment.
Her hair became living snakes. Her skin hardened, her beauty twisted into terror. Any man who met her eyes turned instantly to stone — frozen in the act of beholding what the gods had made monstrous.
Driven into exile, Medusa lived among shadows and whispers, until Perseus came with a mirror-bright shield. Even in death, her power endured: her severed head crowned Athena’s shield, her petrifying gaze now a weapon of divine protection.
Medusa’s myth is one of rage and reclamation — the temple defiled, then reborn as its own fortress.
I Didn’t Ask to Play Along (Scylla)
Scylla was once a nymph, radiant and kind, who walked along the cliffs where the sea met sky. The sea-god Glaucus fell in love with her, but she rejected his affections. Heartbroken, he turned to the witch Circe for help.
Circe, jealous and furious, poured a potion into the waters where Scylla bathed. The sea around her boiled — and from her waist erupted six monstrous heads, snapping jaws and serpentine necks. Her lower body became a tangle of dogs and serpents, forever hungry, forever grieving.
She fled to a cave overlooking the narrow strait opposite Charybdis, another devourer of men. When Odysseus sailed between them, she struck without mercy, seizing six of his men — one for each head.
Scylla’s tragedy is transformation without consent. Once pure, now monstrous, she remains a warning of what happens when divine jealousy turns beauty into terror.
Let the Lotus Pull You In (The Lotus Eaters)
Far across the sea lies the island of the Lotus Eaters — a land of sunlight, song, and sleep.
When Odysseus and his crew came ashore, the inhabitants offered them the sweet fruit of the lotus plant. Those who ate it forgot everything: their homes, their names, their grief, their mission.
In their eyes, life became perfect, unending ease. No hunger, no fear, no memory.
Odysseus dragged his men back to the ship, their tears wet with the sweetness of forgetting.
The Lotus Eaters live in eternal drift — neither cursed nor blessed, but lost. They are the dream that tempts us all: a life without pain, and therefore without meaning.
Whispers (Orpheus)
Orpheus, son of Calliope and Apollo, could charm anything that heard him. Trees bent toward his lyre, rivers changed course to listen. When his beloved Eurydice died of a serpent’s bite, his grief was so pure that it stilled the Underworld itself.
He descended into Hades, playing so beautifully that even the dead paused. Hades agreed to release Eurydice - but warned that Orpheus must not look back until both had reached the living world.
As he neared the surface, doubt gnawed at him. The light was ahead, but the silence behind was unbearable. He turned - and she vanished forever.
Orpheus became the eternal musician of mourning, teaching the world that love is strongest not in union, but in loss.
Walk With the Cursed (The Erinyes)
The Erinyes, or Furies, are older than the Olympians.
Born from the blood of Uranus when his son Cronus struck him down, they are the daughters of Earth and vengeance itself.
They hunt those who break the sacred bonds of family - murderers, oathbreakers, and betrayers of kin. Wreathed in serpents and carrying torches of unending flame, they pursue the guilty across land and time.
When Orestes slew his mother Clytemnestra, they hunted him without mercy until Athena transformed them into the Eumenides, “the Kindly Ones,” guardians of moral balance.
But the Furies have not softened - they simply changed names. Their justice is the shadow of guilt, the whisper that never lets you rest.
Wrath of Nemesis (Nemesis)
Nemesis is not rage - she is correction. The goddess of retribution and balance, she restores order where arrogance blooms. Born of Night, she carries a wheel to remind mortals that fortune always turns.
She is the silent weight behind every fall from grace, the unseen hand that humbles kings and gods alike. When mortals boast beyond measure, when beauty blinds, when cruelty forgets its mirror - Nemesis appears.
It was she who punished Narcissus, making him fall in love with his reflection so that he might know the pain he caused others. Her justice is not personal; it is inevitable.
She is the voice that says: you have taken too much.
Riot In The Strobe Light (The Maenads)
The Maenads were the mortal women of Dionysus — his followers, his dancers, his worshippers lost in divine frenzy.
They roamed mountains in wild processions, clad in fawn skins and ivy, their feet bare, their eyes bright with ecstasy. In their hands they carried thyrsi — staffs wrapped in vine leaves — and they danced until the veil between mortal and divine dissolved.
But ecstasy has a cost. In the oldest tales, the Maenads tore animals — and sometimes men — apart with their bare hands, their strength amplified by Dionysian rapture. They became fae-like spirits of indulgence, haunting the borders of forests and cities, whispering temptations to mortals.
Those who hear their songs may find themselves cursed to excess — to drink until collapse, to feast until sick, to dance until bones give way.
Once human, now spectral, the Maenads linger as embodiments of pleasure without measure: joy turned to ruin by its own abundance.
I Told You (Cassandra)
Cassandra, daughter of Priam and Hecuba of Troy, was clever, fearless, and curious.
It is said that she lured the god Apollo into giving her the gift of prophecy — promising him her affection, but denying him when the power was granted.
In fury, Apollo did not revoke her gift but twisted it: though she would see the future with perfect clarity, no one would ever believe her.
She foresaw the fall of Troy, the deceit of the wooden horse, and her family’s ruin. She screamed warnings, tore her hair, begged the unbelieving to listen. But her words were dismissed as madness.
After the war, she was taken as a slave by Agamemnon and murdered in his home — yet even in death, her eyes saw what was still to come.
Cassandra’s tragedy lies not in innocence, but in knowledge. She outwitted a god — and paid the divine price for her wit.
Hollow Refrain (Echo / The Muses)
Echo was a nymph beloved for her voice, a storyteller so enchanting that Hera herself was distracted by her chatter while Zeus pursued other lovers.
When Hera discovered the deception, she cursed Echo so that she could only repeat what others said.
When Echo saw Narcissus, she fell in love instantly — but her curse trapped her in mimicry. She could not speak her heart, only reflect his own words. Rejected, she faded until nothing remained but her voice, hidden in caves and carried by the wind.
Her story is one of vanishing — the punishment of speech itself. Yet through the ages, her voice remains: not lost, but eternal.
The World Is To Blame (Lamia)
Lamia was once a Libyan queen of surpassing beauty, beloved by Zeus. When Hera learned of her, she murdered Lamia’s children and cursed her never to know peace or rest.
Mad with grief, Lamia’s body twisted into monstrous form. Some say Hera stole her eyes so she could never close them, forcing her to forever see her lost children. Others claim Lamia herself tore them out to end her visions, only for the gods to make them return.
Driven insane, she began to steal and devour the children of others — not out of hunger, but out of despair.
Her name became a nightmare whispered to disobedient youth, but beneath that fear is pity: Lamia is what grief looks like when even death refuses to grant mercy.
The Veil Closes (The Muses)
At the end, the Muses return. Their song softens, gathering all the stories back into silence.
The Veil trembles — heavy with memory — and begins to close. The Cursed recede into shadow once more, their voices lingering like echoes in stone, sea, and star.
The Muses do not mourn. They know that every story must rest before it can be sung again.
And in that stillness, the world forgets what it has just remembered.
BONUS: Mirror, Mirror (Narcissus)
Narcissus, son of the river god Cephissus and the nymph Liriope, was a youth of incomparable beauty. His reflection was his only equal.
Many loved him, but he scorned them all, including the nymph Echo. To teach him empathy, Nemesis lured him to a still pool. When he saw his image, he fell in love, not knowing it was himself.
Unable to reach the one he adored, he wasted away by the water’s edge until his body vanished and a white flower grew in his place — its petals forever bent toward the surface below.
Narcissus remains a symbol of desire turned inward — beauty that devours itself.
BONUS: The Curse & The Silence (Leto)
Leto, daughter of the Titans Coeus and Phoebe, was gentle and radiant. She caught the eye of Zeus and conceived twins — Artemis and Apollo.
When Hera discovered the affair, she forbade any land under the sun to shelter Leto. Shunned and hunted, Leto wandered the earth in exile, heavy with divine life.
At last, the floating island of Delos — neither land nor sea, neither fixed nor free — offered her refuge. There, in solitude and pain, she gave birth to her children: Artemis first, who then helped deliver her brother Apollo.
Leto’s curse was silence — isolation so complete that even the earth refused her. Yet from that silence came gods of music and moonlight.
Her endurance is the quiet power of creation in exile: a mother who birthed beauty from scorn.
On Samhain, the night when worlds blur and spirits cross freely, Hidden Self will open the portal once more with the release of The Cursed, arriving Halloween 2025 on all streaming platforms — including Spotify, Apple Music, Bandcamp, and YouTube Music.
Let the Muses sing, and let the Cursed be heard.