The Drowned Bells of Jersey

Printed under 12 July · Jersey

Lore and belief

When Henry VIII’s commissioners stripped the churches, many bells were shipped away to be sold as metal, and Chambers notes how often the ships that carried them came to grief. Fourteen bells taken from the churches of Jersey were wrecked at the mouth of the harbour of St Malo. From this a saying grew up in the island that the drowned bells ring whenever the wind blows.

a saying arose to the effect, that when the wind blows the drowned bells are ringing.

From Chambers's Book of Days, vol. 2, p. 48. Read the original

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