A bizarre, possibly supernaturally influenced suicide takes place on a college campus. What would you expect the note the victim left behind to say? Maybe ‘The voices told me to do it’. Perhaps ‘The Devil made me do it’? what about ‘The Polar Bears made me do it’?
This cursed painting, painted in 1864 by Edwin Henry Landseer, is often hidden from view by faculty at Royal Holloway, University of London in order for superstitious students to complete their exams.
One tradition holds that anyone sitting directly in a sight line with the painting will fail their exam. Another legend states that one unlucky student locked eyes with one of the ravenous Polar Bears, went mad and committed suicide after scrawling the phrase ‘The Polar Bears made me do it’ on their exam paper.
Even though the curse is unlikely to be ‘real’, nobody can doubt that trying to concentrate on an exam when two blood-thirsty bears tuck into a meal of frozen polar explorers is a tough ask.
