The Legend of the Sunken Bell

Friday 31 May, approx. 22.00

After the gala dinner hosted by the President of the Republic in honour of the Presidents of the Central European States in the restaurant of the Grand Hotel Toplice, the Head of the Protocol Service will invite the presidents and other invited guests onto the terrace with a view of the lake. A performance based on the Legend of the Sunken Bell will follow in the lake itself, and will be introduced to the guests by Prof. Janez Fajfar. The guests will receive a small bell as a symbolic reminder of the event.

The programme of the lake event: The Lip Bled octet will cross Lake Bled in a pletnja boat to signal the beginning of the event. Divers will be ready on the shore and in the lake itself, and girls with lights and lanterns will accompany the performance in three pletnja boats. Two pletnja boats will be filled with lights to be set adrift on the lake. The divers will swim beneath the surface of the lake. When they resurface the Lip Bled octet will sing another song to mark the end of the event. People in the boats will set the lights adrift on the lake.

The "wishing bell" was cast in 1534 by Franziskus Patavinus in Padua, Italy. At that time in Bled castle there lived an inconsolable young widow. Her husband had been killed by bandits who threw his body in the lake. In his memory she collected all her silver and gold and sent it to be cast as a bell for the chapel on the island. But it never reached the island. A terrible storm hurled it beneath the waves of the lake - boat, boatman and all. To this day it is sometimes heard on a clear night, ringing from the depths. After this tragedy, the heartbroken widow sold all her possessions and gave the money to pay for a new church on the island. She went to a nunnery in Rome, where she lived in sorrow till her death. After she died, the pope consecrated a new bell and sent it to the island of Bled. Whoever rings that bell and tells the Lady of the Lake their wish, will have their wish come true.

This is the legend, with an international story of the sunken bell and an idealised tale of how the "wishing bell" came into being.

GOVERNMENT PUBLIC RELATIONS AND MEDIA OFFICE © 2002