Many trials have you endured, many difficulties wandered through, to

reach this spot and this moment in time. Know ye, now, the ancient
history of our bells:

Long ago, buried in the depths of ages past, there was a harmonious
and mostly-sunny kingdom on which the heavens shined perpetually.
The great land of Carillofnia was the envy of all its neighbors, for it was
possessed of an admirable and benevolent ruler, and its people were
well-rested and generally friendly. The kings only daughter, a beautiful
maiden of 16 by the name of Anna Harkness, was the darling of the
populace.

When one tempestuous, thundery day the princess did not return, the
king began to worry. He summoned the Royal Pig-Keeper and Paltry
Musician to the audience chamber, for he knew that the boy (who
would grow to become the great, the eminent, the celebrated, the
outlandish Jo van Haazen Gheyn) was in love with the princess.

Of course the great Jo van Haazen Gheyn to-be decided immediately

set off in search of the princess. He traveled many weary miles,
through hollow lands and hilly lands, through blistering jungles and
flourishing deserts, and he finally discovered that the most powerful
sorcerer of the age, his Gordship, Darth Slater, was holding the
princess captive. With great strength and prowess, the young Jo van
Haazen Gheyn rescued Anna Harkness and returned with her to the
beautiful land of Carillofnia.

However, the actions of Jo van Haazen Gheyn and the princess

angered Darth Slater, and he sent a blight of pigeons to fall upon the
once-happy land of Carillofnia. Pigeon-blight, common in previous
centuries, is among the foulest and most destructive of all magicians
blights known. The pigeons flocked everywhere, and their droppings
flocked everywhere else. The people of Carillofnia mostly stayed
indoors. The crops withered. The roads gave off a horrendous stench.
Everywhere, pigeon-laden tree-branches broke away from their trunks
and landed on peoples houses and telephone lines (this was before
electricity, but after telephone lines). There was nothing left to eat and
nothing left to drink. In desperation, people began to eat the pigeons
and drink their blood in order to stay alive, but it was really, really
ridiculously bad tasting, and no one was happy about it.

This is why, to this day, we remember their plight by eating pigeon

meat and drinking pigeon blood. And to honor our forefathers, you too
shall drink from the pigeon blood now

After 216 days of blight, the king again summoned the great Jo van
Haazen Gheyn and demanded that he get rid of the pigeons. Somehow.
Again Jo van Haazen Gheyn made an arduous trek, this time in the
opposite direction, until he found himself in the realm of the Giant
Pigeon, from whom come all pigeons on Earth.

And this is what the pigeon said:

Young Jo van Haazen Gheyn: Darth Slater is angry that you have
rescued the princess, and it is he who has sent the pigeons to
Carillofnia. The only way you can get rid of the pigeons now is to build
a tower as many feet tall as there have been days of the blight. But
this is not enough. You must then fill that tower will bells and learn to
play harmoniously on them. Then, and only then, will the pigeons
depart your land.

And so it was that Jo van Haazen Gheyn returned to the once-

prosperous land of Carillofnia, possessed of this precious knowledge.
He built a tower to the exact specifications the pigeon had given him.
He filled it with bells. And then (and it took him a very long time), he
learned to play those bells. When finally the sounds he was producing
reached an approximate harmony, the pigeons, as one flock, rose up
into the sky and departed the land forever. They left behind them
nothing but droppings, which the inhabitants quickly cleaned away.

Jo van Haazen Gheyn became obsessed with the bells in the tower and
retired from his position as Royal Pig-Keeper and Paltry musician in
order to devote more time to his new instrument. He dubbed it a
Carillon after the kingdom, and after a while, he became fairly
proficient at playing it. He has since passed into history, but his
creation lives on in the embodiment of this tower that stands above
you.

Remember this story, and keep it in your hearts. It shall serve you well
in times to come.