The Beckoning Bells

      Church bells that call people to prayer were once believe to have supernatural powers. In many Roman Catholic lands in the Middle Ages, when a new bell was consecrated and installed, gifts were presented to it and the event was celebrated with much eating and drinking.

      When England was ravaged by the Black Death in the 14th century, ringing the church bells was widely believed help to disperse the plague. Almost three centuries later Dr Francis Hering, in Certain Rules, Directions, or Advertisements for the Time of Pestilential Contagion, advised: 'Let the bells of cities be rung often: thereby the aire is purified.'

      The ringing of bells at a funeral was once supposed to drive away the dead person's ghost. When the ancient Romans held their feast in honour of the family dead in the month of May, it was customary to ring bronze bells and intone: 'Ghosts of my fathers, go forth.' In the Roman Pontifical, the ringing of bells is recommended for expelling 'the gibbering spectres of the dead'.

      Many legends have told of bells being rung without human aid. Alexandre Dumas, in his Pictures of Travels in the South of France, said that in 1407 unearthly noises, including the chiming of a bell, were heard just before the collapse of the ancient bridge over the River Rhone.

      Until the middle of the 18th century it was believed in Breslau, Poland, that if the cathedral bell rang by supernatural agency one of the canons would die.

Witches' role

      Witches, who were said to fear church bells, were often credited with removing them from their belfries at night. At Canewdon in Essex, a bell which had been dropped in the river by seven witches is said to have been heard tolling from under the water during great storms.

      As recently as 1852 all the church bells were rung--unsuccessfully--in Malta to disperse a severe storm; and in the same century the bells were rung at the parish church of Dawlish in Devon in the hope that their apirit would overcome 'the spirit of the lightning'.