Strangest Mysteries of the World and Beyond !

The curse of the Crying Boy:

The curse of the Crying Boy:

The curse-

The Spanish artist J Bragolin (who also went by aliases Franchot Seville and Bruno Amadio)was said to have painted a deaf and dumb Spanish street urchin by the name of Don Bonillo, who would have been between three and five years old at the time.

It is thought that Bragolin found the child wondering around the streets of Madrid.

The orphan boy had run away after seeing his parents die in a blaze and never spoke again. And because wherever he settled, fires would mysteriously break out, he became known to the locals as Diablo or devil.

 Warned by a Catholic priest that the boy was jinxed, Bragolin nevertheless insisted on painting the boy and is rumored to have tried beating the curse out of him.

When the artist's studio burnt down in a blaze he blamed the orphan boy, and Bragolin's career was likewise jinxed for evermore. For nobody would buy his paintings again after this.

It is thought that 19-year-old Don Bonillo later died in a car accident when the car he was in exploded into flames. Nobody came forward to claim his body.

These crying boy paintings were later mass reproduced in the 1980's and were readily available in places like Woolworths and Boots. The curse of the crying boy began in Yorkshire, September 1985 when over 50 mysterious house fires were thought to have been caused by the paranormal painting. In most cases the houses were completely destroyed and only the painting remained untouched.

 There are a lot of myths surrounding the curse but what we do know for sure is the crying boy was a mass produced painting thought to be popular with the kind of people who left chip pans on and who discarded lit cigarette ends. It is thought that the paintings didn't burn because they were printed on compressed hardboard and hard to ignite. Even so, there is not a firefighter in Yorkshire who will allow one in his/her home.

The Legend

The Curse of the Crying Boy’ appeared out of the blue one morning in 1985 when several mysteries occurred all around England. When the debris was sifted through, the only item that remained un-charred was a painting of a little boy with a tear rolling down his cheek in every fire. Could this all be a coincidence?

Whether real or not a Yorkshire fireman was so upset that he talked with the "Sun" newspaper in England. They ran his story about how everything in the home was consumed by fire except for a painting of a crying boy. There were at that time more than one of these paintings around and each seemed to have the same effect. The home and all contents would be totally destroyed but the painting of the little crying boy would not show any sign at all of going through a fire.

The newspaper began receiving telephone calls from people all over the area that had similar stories to tell about the crying boy painting.

 One person that called the "Sun" was Dora Mann of Mitcham and she has been quoted as saying "Only six months after I had bought the painting, my house was completely gutted by fire. All my paintings were destroyed, except the one of the crying boy."

After one month of hearing all the tales, the "Sun" gave their readers the chance to bring their crying boy painting and agreed to have a very large Bon fire to rid everyone of these cursed painting. All paintings that were brought to the newspaper were in fact burned and everyone rejoiced.

However, the story goes on. There have been reports of the crying boy painting being found in charred homes untouched since 1985 and as recent as 1988.

After one month of hearing all the tales, the "Sun" gave their readers the chance to bring their "Crying Boy" paintings and agreed to have a very large bon fire to rid everyone of these cursed paintings. So all the paintings that were brought to the newspaper were in fact burned and everyone rejoiced that night. That the curse was over. But was it really OVER?

Unforthcoming the story does not end there...

There have been reports of the painting being found in charred homes untouched since 1985 and as recent as 1988.

There are additional stories told by a woman named Dora Mann, from Mitcham, Surrey who claimed her house was gutted just six months after she bought a print of the painting of the Crying Boy. She said," All my paintings were destroyed - except the one of the CRYING BOY."

Sandra Kaske, of Kilburn , North Yorkshire, said that she, her sister - in -law and a friend had all suffered disastrous fires since they all acquired copies of the painting. Another family in Nottingham blamed the painting for a blaze which left them homeless. Brian Parks, wife and three children needed treatment for smoke inhalation. Brian said he had destroyed his copy after returning from the hospital to find it hanging - undamaged, of course - on the blackened wall of his living room. 

Crying Girl?

New versions appeared, including one which suggested those who were kind to the prints were rewarded with good luck.

Another was the idea that placing a picture of the ‘Crying Girl’ next to that of the Crying Boy would bring good luck.

What the story lacked was a satisfying narrative explaining how the print came to be an ignition source.

Soon, that story would be supplied and the arrival of the Internet would provide the legend with a new lease of life independent of the print media which originally set it running.

The notion that the ‘Crying Boy’ had been badly treated by the artist was gaining popularity. Few cared that there were several different paintings and artists, or that this idea began life as a throwaway remark offered to The Sun a decade earlier.

In 2000, Tom Slemen revived the story in book form as part of his Haunted Liverpool series of largely unreferenced books. Like many others in this genre, the stories they contain are presented in an entertaining, narrative style which appeals to a mass readership. In his entry on ‘The Crying Boy Jinx’ Slemen states as fact that the “head of the Yorkshire Fire Brig­ade” had told newspapers that the Crying Boy print had turned up in the rubble of houses that had “mysteriously burnt to the ground”. According to Slemen, when journalists asked him if he believed the picture was evil, “the fire chief refused to comment.”

This factually incorrect account introduced the narrative which followed, finally explaining why the picture was evil. The story was uncovered by “a well respected researcher into occult matters, a retired schoolmaster from Devon named George Mallory” in 1995. Mallory traced the artist who had painted the original, “an old Spanish portrait artist named Franchot Seville, who lives in Madrid”. Seville, as astute readers will recognize, was one of the pseudonyms used by Bruno Amadio, otherwise known as ‘G Bragolin’ whose signature appeared on some of the prints. So far so good.

According to Slemen, Seville/Amadio/Bragolin told Mallory the subject of the paintings was a little street urchin he had found wandering around Madrid in 1969. He never spoke, and had a very sorrowful look in his eyes. Seville painted the boy, and a Catholic priest identified him as Don Bonillo, a child who had run away after seeing his parents die in a blaze. “The priest told the artist to have nothing to do with the runaway, because wherever he settled, fires of unknown origin would mysteriously break out; the villagers called him ‘Diablo’ because of this.” Nevertheless, the painter ignored the priest’s advice and adopted the boy. His portraits sold well but one day his studio was destroyed by fire and the artist was ruined. He accused the little boy of arson and Bonillo ran off – naturally in tears – and was never seen again.

The story continued: “From all over Europe came the reports of the unlucky Crying Boy paintings causing blazes. Seville was also regarded as a jinx, and no one commissioned him to paint, or would even look at his paintings. In 1976, a car exploded into a fireball on the outskirts of Barcelona after crashing into a wall. The victim was charred beyond recog­nition, but part of the victim’s driving license in the glove compartment was only partly burned. The name on the license was one 19-year-old Don Bonillo.”

Is this a real curse or a mere imagination?

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