Local heritage and ghost-tour material gives the curse in much the same words: the Wark would be cursed and never completed. The Hazel Tree says the curse was laid by an Abbot of Cambuskenneth in revenge for the abbey's destruction at the Reformation, and links it to the Erskine family's later downfall and to the fact that the house stands unfinished and roofless.
The Stirling City Heritage Trust page on the abbey does record Erskine as keeper of Stirling Castle taking masonry from the decaying abbey for castle repairs and his own town house, so the stone-taking has a documentary basis. The curse itself is legend, and it was told after the Erskines had already fallen.
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