I need help finding info about a myth/legend i'm "vaguely" remembering. It came from an anime *forget that name atm*, but it talked about a boy and how he would die at a certain age. The story revolved around a violin that was supposedly cursed by the devil or a demon. Whoever played the instrument would making the most beautiful music. However, a bargain had to be struck with the demon inside the cursed object would take the musician's soul that was playing it after a period of time.

Ignoring the anime/boy aspect I could swear the cursed violin part is based on a real story. It might have been an exaggeration of the song "the Devil went down to Georgia," but i'm just really unsure of that. Anyone who's a good legend or myth expert know of the story i'm talking about?

Red Violin?

There was this one black guy in Oh Brother Where Art Thou who sold his soul to the devil to learn how to play guitar real good. Since the movie was based on Homer's Oddysee you might start there. I never read it so I don't know for sure if that part or something similar was in it.

Other than that, stories where people trade their souls to the devil for something are quite common and many are quite old.

That's similar to it, but I remember it being different where an actual entity lived within the violin. For a price the creature would give those who played the violin the talent to make it "sing" as it were. However, the red violin is probably the movie while the anime I remember embellished the tale a bit adding the demon part to it.


Definitely agree with you there Lemunde, the story of selling one's soul to an evil entity "Devil, Lucifer, Satan, etc..." is quite common. It's always about a person who wants something beyond their reach and is willing to sacrifice everything to get it.

Did a quick google and the only thing I could come across that bore a large resemblance to what you're describing was in here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Descendants_of_Darkness_characters

Check the first two characters under "Supporting Human Characters".

No idea if this is it or not.

They stem from the Tragical History of Dr. Faustus (you might know him as Faust). He was a brilliant man who became bored with knowing everything. He made a deal with the devil through Mephistopheles to trade his soul for 25 years of power. The story originated in Germany in the 1400s or 1500s I think.

Ya that's the name of the anime, but I could have sworn it was a violin instead of a cornea transplant. *shrug*

Gives me more wriggle room for a story I cooked up. Still trying to figure out why the heck I started thinking about it last night out of the blue.