It is perhaps more difficult to assign the true origin for the modern term of _Bell Rock_, by which this dangerous reef is now universally known. There is a tradition, that an Abbot of Aberbrothock directed a bell to be erected on the Rock, so connected with a floating apparatus, that the winds and sea acted upon it, and tolled the bell, thus giving warning to the mariner of his approaching danger. Upon similar authority, the bell, it is said, was afterwards carried off by pirates, and the humane intentions of the Abbot thus frustrated. This story has, by a modern poet, been made the subject of the ballad of “Sir Ralf the Rover,” which, for the reader’s amusement, is inserted in the Appendix, No. II.
Of the erection of the Bell, and of the machinery by which it was rung, if such ever existed, it would have been interesting to have had some authentic evidence. But, though a search has been made in the chartularies of the Abbey of Aberbrothock, preserved in the Advocates’ Library, and containing a variety of grants and other deeds, from the middle of the 13th to the end of the 15th century, no trace is to be found of the Bell Rock, or any thing connected with it. The erection of the bell is not, however, an improbable conjecture; and we can more readily suppose that an attempt of that kind was made, than that it had been intentionally removed, which in no measure accords with the respect and veneration entertained by seamen of all classes for land-marks; more especially, as there seems to be no difficulty in accounting for the disappearance of such an apparatus unprotected, as it must have been, from the raging element of the sea. It is not therefore unlikely, that the popular appellation by which this Rock has more recently been known, may owe its origin to the tradition of the Abbot’s humanity and public spirit; and when we consider that the churchmen of those days were well acquainted with the history of the celebrated Pharos of Alexandria, and may have heard of the fire-towers and sea-marks, which Mr Bryant, in his Mythology, conjectures existed in very remote times, it is natural to suppose, that these learned persons had, at a pretty early period, turned their attention to the subject, and had attempted, in the mode which has been figured, to point out and guard against the danger.