The Anchorite

What it looks like, and what it does

A huge pale crab on a dark sea floor, a green-bronze ship's bell strapped over its back like a shell. A rope still trailing. The clapper swinging. Legs like mooring chains. Small fish keeping to the sound.

Walks the seabed slowly. Rings with every step. Stops and rests for days at a time, silently.

What is known

Trawlermen of the Northern Banks have heard the bell for 180 years and have followed it away from the shoals.

It walks toward land, a few metres a year. At its present speed it will reach the harbour wall in about 340 years. The harbour authority has asked for an advance notice in writing.

What it can do

• Its bell is heard by ships forty kilometres away
• Guides vessels away from shoals

Where it stops

• Rings only when it walks
• Never rises above forty fathoms

An encounter

Dahl heard the bell off the port bow and altered course for it. In the morning the chart showed the shoal she would have struck. She logged the position of the bell and the word “thanks.” She says it is not superstition. She says it is a courtesy.

Ragnhild Dahl, trawler skipper, Northern Banks, 40 km offshore, A night in fog, March

What is established, and what is only said

• established: Sonar returns over eighty years show a single large mobile object tracking toward the coast at 3 to 5 metres a year.
• rumor: That the bell was lowered, not wrecked.
• incomplete: Divers who reached it reported an inscription. They did not agree on the language.

Still unresolved

The bell is cast with a name. It is not the name of any ship that has ever been lost.

Where it has been recorded

• The Northern Banks (confirmed) — Recorded by Ragnhild Dahl, trawler skipper.

Stories about it

• The Anchorite at Cantor's Shoal (Grotesque encounter, 3 min) — A fishing boat hauling in its nets over Cantor's Shoal snags on a crab the size of a steam drifter, wearing a sunken ship's bell as its shell, and the crab does not fight the net but sits on the seabed and rings the bell until the boat turns its bow to face the open sea.

Connected entities

• The Cistern Whale — Both are large, patient presences in water that serve a community by being heard, and neither has been seen to ask for anything.
• The Keeper Who Became the Light — Both guide ships from a fixed place by sound or light. Both are looked after by the crews who steer by them.
• The Foghorn of Gannet Point — Both guide the lost by sound from a fixed place. Both are cared for by the people who have been found.