When the BELLS, TOLL......, Where will you be ?  

Hi hiccup, Bells toll at a funeral so it would toll for the one who has passed on. Many churches no longer have bells, so it doesn't happen as often as it once did. It was especially common in Britain in the last century and probably still is common in some places today. As a boy and young man living in Eastern Canada, it was very familiar to me. Blessings.

In churches here bells toll before every mass. When there's to be wed,when there's baptism, when there's to be blessed (funerals), during angelus time and in some remote areas ringing of bells is to announce something important to the people.

Hiya hiccup,

As for Bells if you are talking about Church Bells in particular if anyone would have lived where I lived you have loved for them all to go on strike. There was one in particular that sounded like a Funeral Bell tolling all Day long. Even if you shut the Windows it was vibrating your Walls.
Bells, sound of Bells are not very frecuent here thank God.
What I mean to say is that I´m usually trying to be where I can´t hear the darned things they go way past the noise contamination level.
It´s not like in England the Bells well most Bells will sound or chime for a while but here it´s like an obsession.

I think the bell used to toll when someone died. Today bells toll for a lot of reasons--weddings, calls to church, celebrating Easter and Christmas. In my town we have a church that I attend and it has a belltower. The clocks tolls the quarter, half and full hours and I can hear it from my house. Every day at 5pm the bells also play songs! It has been Christmas songs lately will will go back to hymns now.

I never knew how much I missed the bells until I got to move back to the area I love.

Am thinking the toll is ringing the bell for one who has died.
But they dont ring them any more.
Teh bell tolls for those who have passed on!

I think this had to do with the custom of tolling the bell when someone died. To toll the bell you had to pull the rope, but I would guess these days you just push a button and the whole thing is electric. I to love to hear the church bells ring in the distance especially on a snowy morning.

hey there Hiccup,

Not real sure what it really means. I'll tell you what. I'll dig out some of my metallica music and give it a listen this afternoon. I'll pay extra close attention to the lyrics and with any luck, I'll be back here later with an answer to this mystery. ok?

Tolling is different from ringing. When a bell is rung, it is swung till it is upside down and then allowed to swing back down again so that the clapper hits the bell with some force. When a bell is tolled, it is swung gently so that the clapper hits the bell gently and the sound is more muted. Ringing is generally used for joyful events but tolling is most often used for funerals.

The quotation you are thinking of comes from Meditation 17 by John Donne. It was written in Latin and is sometimes rendered as: "Ask not for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee." The meditation explains how, in Donne's view, all humanity is connected and ends as follows:

"No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."