Clopotul
For whom The Bell tolls
Paraphrasing the Dictionary of Romanian Mythology once again, Clopotul is personifying the metallic instrument whose tongue speaks the sacred language. He comforts and brings the faithful to prayer, breaks spells and banishes nature’s evil spirits. Again the history is written by the winners, so that spirits deemed evil could be not so evil after all. Clopotul is representing the Indo-European solar and then Christian civilizations. It’s metal. Before there was wood. The wood civilizations of Europe had their sacred tongue spoken by Toaca. We will get to her when we arrive at E(1,16). But this is E(1,15). Jingle bells. Jingle all the way to the church. Just like Toaca, Clopotul was gladly adopted by the Christians but this one has gone global and it’s a staple of rituals in every corner of the world.
Big bells in church steeples, little bells stuck to everything that moves. They tied bells to ankles or waist to purify the space during rituals. The cowbell was attached to the cow basically to keep the witches from stealing milk. Simpler times. Technology came in to help humanity. Toaca, the wooden one, had to be beaten in order to speak, while the new and improved metallic bells can be more akin to an “one man band” system, motion translated frictionless into sound. Just one small step toward drum machines and DAWs.
I’ve been programmed to activate an earworm for some English words. For “Bell” it’s Metallica, the third track on Ride the Lightning. It just pops in and keeps marching on. I never thought about the message, I just picked up some phrases here and there, never bothering to really understand where were they going with it. One of the perks of not being a native English speaker. Just like in that old Dutch commercial for language lessons. But in a good way. I may have dodged a few bullets in my youth by never quite getting the message. Maybe something stuck subliminally, but maybe things don’t get stuck if coming from parallel universes in foreign languages. I still have so many earworms and clichés ready to deploy inside my brain as it is. I can’t imagine what would it be like if I had been fully immersed and comprehending EVERYTHING foreign thrown at me during those formative years.
Bells would have been welcomed to scare the evil spirits pouring out from the radio and the TV. Or maybe bells are working only on Nature’s spirits, not on the technological ones. After all, there are bells everywhere and the evil spirits of modernity seem to thrive. Bells and whistles. Ringtones. Ring cams. Belle eventually attracted the Beast, as she was also attracted to him. She can change him. Tame him. The Beast is from the Forest, the Woods. He probably banged the Toaca. Belle was disrupting all of it. New order. Now you will bang metal. Forget your old ways, Beast! Get insurance, take a loan!
In Coliere V1, this one was Neon. One flash followed by fourteen empty spaces. Hard to comprehend without any aid. It helps overlaying it to some other, busier 15 steps pattern, like Filipii E(8,15), or Corboaica (11,15). Just bang that Bell one time every time it loops. Morrigan, Morrigan, Morrigan, sha-BANG!! One in fifteen is just one small step shorter than the familiar one in sixteen. As if is a bit in a hurry. 1,2,3,4, 1,2,3,4, 1,2,3,4, 1,2,3.
So it might be a good idea to imagine that lone Bang by the big Bell on top of the church, while all those 14 mute ones as the small bells that can barely be heard jingling. Cows coming back home, Călușari dancing, babies jangling their toys. They may not be the loudest, but they are still there. And if one pays enough attention they are really everywhere. Without all those small ones, the big one cannot be comprehended, it wouldn’t even exist.