The Bell of Sorrigán

In Sorrigán, when a child turns seven, they go down to the breakwater with their family and throw a small piece of metal into the sea: a button, a nail, an old key. My grandmother says it’s so that the bell gets to know them. And this is the story she tells.

A long time ago, the village wanted a bell to warn of storms. As there was no money to buy bronze, every villager handed over something made of metal: rings, thimbles, horseshoes, buckles. Martín, a boy who had nothing else, gave the key to his father’s boat; the sea had taken his father the winter before. Only the lord of the tower, who lived on the other side of the bay, gave nothing. “When it’s made,” he said, “it will be mine.”

Aldara, the bell-founder, worked for three days and three nights. When she had finished, she said: “This bell will only sing for those who put something of themselves into it.”

The lord, who boasted that he could hear a falcon three miles away, laughed. A week later, his men carried the bell off on a barge to hang it in his tower. Halfway across the bay a storm broke and the barge sank with its cargo. The men swam to safety; the bell stayed on the seabed.

Ever since, before every storm, the villagers hear the bell tolling beneath the water, and nobody goes out to fish. One autumn, with the sky still clear, the lord mocked the fishermen who were tying up their boats and went out fishing alone.

That night, Martín, now a young man, heard the bell louder than ever. He ran to the breakwater with a lantern, and what he saw on the horizon was a tiny boat struggling against the waves.