The Yerk Bells

LEGENDS

THE 'YERK' BELLS

England has many legends from ages past. Most of these are well known but there are still a few old legends that, although they have never been widely told, are still passed down the generations by a handful of people. These lesser known legends and local tales tend to die out as the younger generations move away from home for work or to study.

There is one of these lesser known legends which is about the 'Yerk Bells'. In one small, isolated village, you may, if you go into certain houses, see these 'Bells'. None of the surrounding villages have them and it seems that the legend, as told to me, is on the point of dying out. It is a most unusual legend, born out of people's experiences of life long ago, mixed with their ignorance over health and made possible by the localised weather on this part of the coast.

Take yourself back over 500 years and pretend that you are living in a tiny, isolated hamlet of just a few houses, close to the sea, and surrounded by forest. The people were mainly fishermen or dependent on some way for their living from the sea. There are a few surrounding hamlets, but they are a walk through the thick forest, and contact with other people is only for the trade of fish for cereals.

Under many weather conditions the mist rises from the nearby river and flows through the forest, but is kept away from the hamlet by the prevailing breeze from the sea. In the autumn the sea can be warmer than the air, especially in the evening, and a thick fog rolls in and blankets the shore with a dense white mist that leaves the trees dripping with condensation. Inshore villages do not get this thick fog and the inhabitants of the hamlet would leave a neighbouring village on a cold and clear evening to find that they had to walk through the dripping fog just yards from their own village. They would get home dripping wet to an often cold dwelling.

Everyone 'knew' the sea mist was the restless spirits from the sea coming onto land for mischievous purposes and they had all seen the mist creep in under doors and make the houses cold and damp. These spirits were the drowned sailors from this treacherous part of the coast looking for a warm place on land to stay. It would seep in under doors and through any gaps in the windows to make the room feel colder and damper than it was. Even a roaring fire could not keep the mists out.

The inhabitants of the hamlet noticed that, many times, the thick damp fog from the sea tended to bypass the ruins of an old abbey, built then destroyed, long before the hamlet existed. Elderly and sick villagers started to spend the autumn in crude huts built in the grounds of the abbey ruins in order to avoid the dampness. But superstitions led them to believe that the abbey was haunted and the elderly went to live in a village inland, leaving the younger people to stay in their homes close to where their boats were pulled up on the beach.

The legend of the 'Yerk Bell' started when a man took stones from the ruins to build himself a better house. Whilst collecting the stones he found a small bell and took it back to his house. That autumn there were terrible mists and often the ruins were totally covered in the sea fog, he was lost at sea, and his house was abandoned and left uninhabited. The villagers assigned these events to the little bell being taken from the abbey so they returned it to the ruins and buried it.

The next autumn, the sea fog returned, but not so bad as that previous year, and once again the abbey escaped most of the dense fogs.

It was, to them, obvious that the bell had magical qualities and kept the sea fogs away from the ruins, but it was also obvious that it was extremely bad luck to remove the bell from its resting place. As they could not afford to buy bronze bells a tradition started to evolve around the mid 1500s. Small earthware or clay bells were made and a pinch of sandy earth from the ruins were added and then the bell was hung up in the houses, just behind the door. This was to bring some of the magic from the little bell in the abbey to help ward off the sea mist (and the spirits) from coming into their homes.

The legend then says that at times when a exceptionally dense mist and, hence, many sea spirits were due the little earthware bells would ring a warning - even though these were made with no clappers. This was the warning to stoke up the fires, stay in the house and block up the doors and windows to keep the spirits out. No one would consider going out in their boat, no matter how clear the day, if someone heard a 'Yerk Bell" ring. These 'Yerk Bells' would often be painted red as an extra protection against the sea spirits.

I have looked to try to find the name 'Yerk' and it appears to have been used in the times of William Shakespeare to mean 'jerk suddenly' or to 'pull suddenly'. So it can be assumed that the good spirits jerked on one of these bells as a fore warning of the spirits of the drowned sailors coming ashore that evening.

We have made a 'Yerk Bell' identical to the one seen, complete with pinch of sand from the old ruins, and it hangs by the door of our house.