Tolling The Devil’s Knell Is An Old English Custom
On Christmas Eve in the small Yorkshire town of Dewsbury, the “Devil’s Knell” is tolled on the tenor bell of the Parish Church. This is a 700-year-old custom interrupted only by the war when bell-ringing was banned for security reasons. Teams of bell-ringers will start o’clock to comlete the tolling of the 1948th stroke • —one for every year since the birth of Christ—on the hour of midnight. Legend says that the custom began in the 13th century when a local baron, as penance for killing his servant, gave a bell to the church and ordered it to be rung each Christmas Eve to remind him of his crime. For many years the people of Dewsbury believed that the tolling of the bell would keep the devil away from the parish for the next twelve months.
On New Year’s Eve the bell-ring-ers again meet. With the bells muffled they ring out the old year, and then proclaim the new year with a joyous peal.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BPB19490516.2.9
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Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 87, 16 May 1949, Page 4
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172Tolling The Devil’s Knell Is An Old English Custom Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 87, 16 May 1949, Page 4
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