When the village could be heard

A girl in the bell tower

In 1976 Armallones’s school closed because no children remained. Toni Ibáñez was the village’s only girl. She was fourteen when the priest asked her to help at a funeral: he brought her a bench, showed her how to ring and told her to do what she could — and hold on if she started flying.

Ringing a dobles required technique. Grip the rope above your head, lower your arms to your waist, let the clapper’s force raise your hands, breathe and pull again. Without enough strength, hands rise to neck height and the body bends at right angles, the rope straightening it. Toni sums it up: “The bell has to weep”, without cutting off or rushing its sound.

Many years later she wrote it in Abarca, the Alto Tajo villages’ magazine, describing every signal she knew.

What each signal said

Dobles announced a death. At the end the sound faded, followed by three strikes for a man and two for a woman; this ending survived into the 1960s, then disappeared. Duration marked the deceased’s importance. Tolling accompanied the coffin carried to the cemetery gate, around twenty minutes. It also rang on All Saints’ Eve from eight in the evening for almost an hour, houses full of candles and boys placing hollowed pumpkins like skulls: souls from purgatory were believed to return that night.

Arrebato rang rapidly on the large bell, one sound overtaking another. It signalled fire or emergency, and everyone came without asking why.

A gloria used both bells together for baptisms, weddings and the Resurrection. Several people were needed to swing them like little bells, though the smaller weighed 200 kilos and the larger 500. After baptism the godfather threw sweets from the church steps; otherwise children sang a mocking verse. No child has been born in Armallones since 1965.

The fog signal

Fog ringing best explains a bell’s purpose. When fog or blizzards erased paths, the large bell rang in the afternoon, starting an hour before dusk, so people outdoors could find their way home.

There were three strikes, each allowed to fade completely. A lost walker stopped at the first, waited for the second to establish direction, and the third confirmed it. The ringer estimated the time needed to walk twenty metres, sometimes pacing across the choir to keep warm, then rang again. Returning villagers notified the ringer to stop. Toni says Armallones’s bell can be heard as far as the Tagus.

The mid-18th-century Ensenada survey already records a paid sacristan ringing against storm clouds and fog. Toni never heard ringing against hail.

Her bells were replacements. They disappeared during the 1936 war, like many melted down or sold by weight. On 29 July 1948 the mayor signed in Carabanchel Bajo for two new bells from Hijos de Constantino Linares: around 500 and 200 kilos, at 35 pesetas per kilo.

Checa’s Campanillo

In Checa, San Juan Bautista church’s smaller bell was cast locally in 1813 by Juan de la Cuesta. It bears Saint Barbara’s name, but everyone calls it El Campanillo. Popular memory says neighbours shouted for more copper during casting, possibly giving rise to “Cobre que sobre”, “Copper to spare”. According to the same tradition, the founder answered: “Bárbara is my name, a hundred arrobas my weight; anyone who doubts me can put me on the scales.” The larger bell, Santa María, was cast by the Colines in 1890.

Checa was a village of smiths, with ironworks, long-renowned iron and an 1886 ironwork gate in the church atrium by gunsmith Fermín Cercenado.

Arbeteta’s Mambrú

In Arbeteta in 1787, San Nicolás de Bari church was ruined, and residents chose between the budgeted bell gable and a tower more befitting a town. They voted for the tower. Miguel Mateo Fandos, builder of Escamilla’s and Molina’s towers, erected it in Aragonese Baroque style with three stages. On top went a brass-clad wooden weather vane: a grenadier with a mitre and a small cross-bearing flag. The village called him Mambrú, like the song; neighbouring villages still call Arbeteta residents mambrús.

Francisco Layna Serrano’s 1944 legend makes Mambrú the sacristan’s son, in love with a wealthy Escamilla girl. Her father rejected a poor son-in-law. He became a grenadier and returned a sergeant, but that was not enough. The lovers climbed their village towers to signal each other until he returned to war for further promotion. He became a captain and died in battle; when news reached Escamilla, she fell ill and soon died. Residents placed a grenadier and a young woman’s figure on their respective towers.

In 1985 lightning knocked Mambrú down. Residents found him broken, only the head remaining, containing round musket bullets. The Abarca article’s authors attribute them to French troops who sacked Arbeteta on 27 November 1811. They also say Civil War troops passing through shot at him for amusement.

Alustante’s signals

In Alustante, Diego Sanz set out to recover village bell signals, publishing the work in 2005 in Cuadernos de Etnología de Guadalajara. He rang bells and joined processions himself, helping establish the Santo Cristo de las Lluvias brotherhood.

That brotherhood accompanied the dead. Paulino Lorente, now over ninety-nine, recalls taking turns with the priest and a huge crucifix to collect the deceased from home. Before the funeral a child walked through the village ringing clamores on a small bell to announce the death. That life appears in The bread Paulino saved; other village sounds and trades in What a roof tile can hold.