When taken in the light of sources such as the maledictory formularies of medieval clerics, the stories of curses found in early Insular Celtic accounts often seem to be more the products of literary imaginings than faithful representations of actual cursing practice. These Celtic literary maledictions thus appear closer in style to a third type of Greek and Roman imprecation – other than katadesmoi and conditional curses – one known only from ancient literary sources. Usually styled arae, or curse poems, there has long been a suspicion that these highly stylised and sophisticated classical expressions are somehow related to binding spells. Close examination of the arae has revealed, however, that they were exclusively literary expressions with no equivalent in classical grimoires or on ancient spell tablets. They share some parallels in terms of how ancient curses were conceptualised, featuring justifications for cursing, for example, and rhetorical devices such as sympathetic and oppositional expressions. But they do not show any clear textual linkage with conditional curses or binding charms. Perhaps the most famous of these classical literary curses, the curse poem Ibis by the Roman poet Ovid, is clearly based on a now-lost Greek ara and it is evident that the curse poems of antiquity have more in common with other literary writings than they do ancient magical finds. On the other hand, supernatural expressions similar to ancient imprecations, linguistically and in literary context quite separate from the quasibiblical maledictions of Irish saints, are also known from early Celtic tales, not that they are always described in particularly clear terms. Yet the earliest of these descriptions are also centuries later than the most recent of the Old Celtic defixiones, and hence they, too, might be thought to have had little to do with the antique practice of cursing.

Simple secular maledictions such as Mallacht a gascid fair!, ‘A curse on his weapons!’ or Fognad dúib ág is ernbas!, ‘May danger and destruction attend you!’ appear commonly enough in early insular literature. It is also clear that some forms of early Irish satire were thought of in much the same terms as biblical curses were. Yet there are also some references to binding in some of the charms recounted in early Irish tales.