The New International Encyclopædia/Sunken Bell, The

SUNKEN BELL, The (Ger. Die versunkene Glocke). A poetic play in blank verse by Gerhart Hauptmann (1896). It is a fairy-drama, the chief human character of which is Heinrich, a master bell-founder who has completed his crowning work, a bell which is to be hung in a church on a mountain inhabited by sprites. Through their hostility the wagon bearing the bell is overthrown and the latter is sunk in a mountain brook. Heinrich is injured and is nursed by the chief personage of the drama, Rautendelein, half child, half fairy, whose love changes Heinrich's standards and brings about the death of his wife.