Description:
A curse is a form of harmful magic that typically is targeted at a person or multiple people or imbued into an object, and causes misfortune, suffering, or death. Curses are usually cast through spoken charms or written speech, sometimes following specific formulae such as repetition; although sometimes, in literature for example, the text can simply say "this object was cursed" or "and they laid a curse on him/her" without describing how.
In Old Norse literature, curses of various types are relatively common, evident in famous sagas such as Völsunga saga, where the dwarf Andvari lays a curse on his ring and the stolen gold which brings about the deaths of many characters; or two separate curses which cause the substantial weakening and eventual death of the outlaw-hero, Grettir Ásmundarson in Grettis saga (LINK). One of the mythological poems, Skírnismál, involves a spoken curse which is threatened but never actually laid upon someone, but its description is particularly vivid and horrific.