Albatross Around Your Neck
Definition: A burden or source of distress.
Origin
The first reference to this phrase comes from Samuel Coleridge's poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (1798), which was based on the widespread belief that killing an albatross was very unlucky and generally not a good thing. Not everyone during Colleridge's time, however, must have read the Albatross News because in the poem, a sailor does a very stupid thing and kills— yup, you guessed it — an albatross. When calamity befalls the ship, his shipmates in retaliation force him to wear the large, wet, dead bird around his neck, which was undoubtedly a burden and source of distress.
