Ding-dong and Ting-a-ling! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Big Ben

This name is often used in reference to the clock, but it is really the name given to the main big bell in the tower. The belfry houses four other, smaller bells which ring the Westminster Quarters. There is no certainty as to how the Great Bell got its nickname. Possibly, it was named for Sir Benjamin Hall who was the overseer of the bell's installation or after Benjamin Gaunt who was the English Heavyweight Boxing Champion.

Answer: music

The 'fine lady' with 'rings on her fingers and bells on her toes' is supposed to be Elizabeth the First who was riding a white stallion to see a newly-erected cross in Banbury. Her shoes would have been of the type with elongated, pointed and folded-back toes with small bells attached to them.

Answer: a book

The book was usually the Bible and was left open during the ceremony which was finalised when the officials closed the book, quenched the candle and tolled the bell - as for someone who had died. It signified the end of the excommunicated person's life within the Catholic Church.

Answer: thee

These well-known words (written in 1624) were not originally written as a poem. The passage is taken from some 'Devotions' which the poet wrote and is in prose. When written as a blank-verse poem, each separate idea seems to have a stronger impact. Here is the prose version, so that you can judge for yourself. - 'No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.'

Answer: Liberty Bell

This bell was cast in London, England in 1752 and later recast in Philadelphia. It was rung when Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence.

Answer: John Betjeman

It is unusual because it is written in blank verse. In this work, published in 1960, Betjeman describes his life as a young man from the time when he lived in a middle-class home to when he left Magdalen College, Oxford. 'A Ring of Bells' is an abridged version which the poet released for children.

Answer: jingle

The rhythm of this merry little song repeats the tinkling of the small sleigh bells. For those of you who don't know it, it describes the pleasures of a sleigh ride through snowy countryside.

Answer: Moscow

This bell has been the largest in the world for centuries. It weighs 216 tons, has a height of just-over 20 feet and a diameter of 21 feet. (Enormous, isn't it?). It has never been rung and, unless it is repaired, it never will be. After a fire in 1737, a huge slab of eleven and a half tons cracked off while it was still in the casting pit. It stayed buried in its pit for a century then, in 1836, it was placed on a pedestal in the Kremlin.

It served as a chapel for a while - the broken piece was used as a door.

Answer: tinkling

The noises of bells are strongly evoked in the sounds of the words throughout this fairly-long poem - of which I have given only a very-small extract.
It is interesting to note that Poe was only paid 15 dollars for his work and that it wasn't published until after his death.

Answer: bell foundry

The famous Whitechapel Bell Foundry is in London, England. It was established in 1570 during the reign of Elizabeth the First and is still in business. Many great and well-known bells were cast here including the Liberty Bell in 1752 and Big Ben in 1858.