An early reference to the giant or devil named Bell The story of Bell the giant can be found in ‘Bygone Leicestershire’, edited by William Andrews and published in 1892, as well as ‘A Provincial Glossary with a Collection of Local Proverbs and Popular Superstitions’ by Francis Grose published in 1787. In both cases the story is attributed to Peck.
Francis Peck FSA (1692-1743) was an antiquarian,naturalist and rector of Goadby Marwood and his major publication was the two volume ‘Desiderata Curiosa’ published in 1732-35. So the story goes back at least 280 years.
In fact it may be even older.
John Earle (1601 to 1665) wrote describing a journey taken one summer from Oxford to York.He mentions the myth that Mountsorrel in Leicestershire had been moved by the devil (Erudite Satire in Seventeenth Century England by Felicity Henderson)
An active jumper was said to “Leap like the Bell-giant or devil of Mountsorrel.”
This proverb is derived from a very curious old Leicestershire legendary story. As this tradition is supposed to have given names to several places in the neighbourhood of Mountsorrel, we will briefly recapitulate it for the delectation of our readers. Here it is in the words of Peck :
” About Mountsorrel or Mountstrill the country people have a story of a giant or devil, named Bell, who once, in a merry vein, took three prodigious leaps, which they thus describe :
” At a place, thence ever after called Mountsorrel, he mounted his sorrel-horse, and leaped a mile, to a place from this circumstance since called One Leap, now corrupted into Wanlip ; thence he leaped another mile, to a place called Burstall, from the bursting of both himself, his girths, and his horse ; the third leap was also a mile, but the violence of the exertion and shock killed him, and there he was buried, and the place has ever since been denominated Bell’s grave, or Belgrave.”
A book of poems by Murray Rumsey was published in 1941. Murray was the son? of Henry Hunn Rumsey,Vicar of Quorn 1909-1940. In one of the poems he elaborates the old Giant Bell legend. Another poem is about courting couples in Mountsorrel turning out the street lamps.
