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You're right about the choice of words on the stone being a bit strange, but I think the inspiration for the carving came from the museum itself. The museum has been open since the 80s and one of its main attractions is a visual audio film depicting the times of the reivers, a lawless bunch of raiders and plunderers. The film starts off with the curse being read out to the audience. This curse has been cast on to listening audiences many times a day, for over ten years, but no one ever objected, and no one ever thought to blame the film for causing any particular problems.
These same words have now been etched onto a rather beautiful polished granite stone. The stone sits quietly, almost forgotton, in the underpass between the castle and the museum. Mostly people pass it by without even looking its way. The borderers family names carved in the floor of the underpass attract more attention, as everyone walking through searches for their family name.
The stone's curse was never meant to be declared over the city; the words are only a rememberence of a shocking time in our history, and the words themselves do not have any power. They only have power if people give them power, as this latest debacle has done.
I live in carlisle, I am descended from the cursed reivers, and the stone holds no power over me.
However, you are right, I would never inscribe a curse anywhere near my home........
Something is not right. This message is just to keep things from messing up down the road