Читать книгу Lancashire Folk-lore - Thomas Turner Wilkinson - Страница 11

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It is not with Bells generally, but only with Church Bells, and not with all their uses, but only such of them as are superstitious, that we are called upon to deal here. The large church bells are said to have been invented by Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, in Campania (whence the low Latin name of Campana), about A.D. 400. Two hundred years afterwards they appear to have been in great use in churches. Pope John XIII., in A.D. 968, consecrated a very large newly-cast bell in the Lateran Church at Rome, giving it the name of John. This is the first instance known of what has since been called "the baptising of bells," a Roman Catholic superstition of which vestiges remain in England in the names of great bells, as "Tom of Lincoln," "Great Tom of Oxford," &c. The priests anciently rung them themselves. Amongst their superstitious uses, were to drive away lightning and thunder; to chase evil spirits from persons and places; to expedite childbirth, when women were in labour; and the original use of the soul-bell or passing-bell was to drive away any demon that might seek to take possession of the soul of the deceased. Grose says that the passing-bell was anciently rung for two purposes: one, to bespeak the prayers of all good Christians for a soul just departing; the other, to drive away the evil spirits who stood at the bed's foot and about the house, ready to seize their prey, or at least to molest and terrify the soul in its passage. By the ringing of the bell they were kept aloof, and the soul, like a hunted hare, gained the start, or had what sportsmen call "law." Hence the high charge for tolling the great bell of the church, which, being louder, the evil spirits must go further off to be clear of its sound, by which the poor soul got so much the more start of them; besides, being heard further off, it would likewise procure the dying man a greater number of prayers. Till about 1830, it was customary at Roman Catholic funerals in many parts of Lancashire, to ring a merry peal on the bells, as soon as the interment was over. Doubtless the greater the clang of the bells, the further the flight of the fiends waiting to seize the soul of the departed. There are some monkish rhymes in Latin on the uses of church bells, some of which are retained in the following doggerel:—

Men's deaths I tell

Lightning and thunder

On Sabbath all

The sleepy head

The winds so fierce

Men's cruel rage

By doleful knell;

I break asunder;

To church I call;

I raise from bed;

I do disperse;

I do assuage.

The following verses (the spelling modernized) further illustrate the subject:[28]—

"If that the thunder chance to roar, and stormy tempest shake,

A wonder is it for to see the wretches how they quake;

How that no faith at all they have, nor trust in any thing,

The clerk doth all the bells forthwith at once in steeple ring;

With wondrous sound and deeper far than he was wont before,

Till in the lofty heavens dark the thunders bray no more.

For in these christen'd bells they think doth lie much pow'r and might

As able is the tempest great and storm to vanquish quite.

I saw myself at Nurnberg once, a town in Toring coast,

A bell that with this title bold herself did proudly boast:

By name I 'Mary' called am, with sound I put to flight

The thunder-cracks and hurtful storms, and every wicked sprite.

Such things when as these bells can do, no wonder certainly

It is, if that the papists to their tolling always fly,

When hail, or any raging storm, or tempest comes in sight,

Or thunderbolts, or lightning fierce, that every place doth smite."

Wynkin de Worde[29] tells us that bells are rung during thunder-storms, to the end that the fiends and wicked spirits should be abashed, and flee, and cease the moving of the tempest.[30] Bells appear to have had an inherent power against evil spirits, but this power was held to be greatly increased by the bells being christened. There is a custom in some Lancashire parishes, in ringing the passing-bell, to conclude its tolling with nine knells or strokes of the clapper, for a man, six for a woman, and three for a child; the vestiges of an ancient Roman Catholic injunction.[31] In an Old English Homily for Trinity Sunday,[32] it is stated that "the form of the Trinity was found in man; that was, Adam our forefather, on earth, one person, and Eve of Adam, the second person; and of them both was the third person. At the death of a man three bells should be rung, as his knell, in worship of the Trinity, and for a woman, who was the second person of the Trinity, two bells should be rung." Two couplets on the passing-bell may be inserted here:—

"When the bell begins to toll,

Lord have mercy on the soul!

When thou dost hear a toll or knell

Then think upon thy passing-bell."[33]

The great bell which used to be rung on Shrove-Tuesday to call the people together for the purpose of confessing their sins, or to be "shriven," was called the "Pancake Bell," and some have regarded it simply as a signal for the people to begin frying their pancakes. This custom prevails still in some parts of Lancashire, and in many country places throughout the North of England. Another bell, rung in some places as the congregation quits the church on Sunday, is popularly known among country people as the "pudding-bell," they supposing that its use is to warn those at home to get the dinner ready, as, in homely phrase, "pudding-time has come." A Lancashire clergyman[34] states that this bell is still rung in some of the old Lancashire parish churches; but he does not suggest any more probable reason for tolling this bell. The Curfew Bell [couvre feu, cover-fire] is commonly believed to be of Norman origin; a law having been made by William the Conqueror that all people should put out their fires and lights at the eight o'clock (evening) bell, and go to bed. In one place the sexton of a parish was required to lie in the church steeple, and at eight o'clock every night to ring the curfew for a quarter of an hour. The curfew-bell is still rung at Burnley, Colne, Blackburn, Padiham, and indeed in most of the older towns and many of the villages of Lancashire. It has nearly lost its ancient name, and is a remarkable instance of the persistence of an old custom or usage, long after all its significance or value has ceased. It is now merely called "the eight o'clock bell." A morning bell, rung anciently at four, now more commonly at six o'clock, is also to be heard in Burnley and other places, and is called "the six o'clock bell." Of what maybe called "the vocal ghosts of bells" many stories might be told. Opposite the Cross-slack, on the sands near Blackpool, out at sea, once stood the church and cemetery of Kilgrimol, long since submerged. Many tales are told of benighted wanderers near this spot being terrified with the sound of bells pealing dismal chimes o'er the murmuring sea.[35]