Hhhi there
 
Schaffhausen’s most prestige fitness club, the Schaffhausen Hash House Harriers, or simply SH3 welcome YOU to their 71st run and special Munot bell* hash:

When: 19:00 FRIDAY, 5th February 2010

Where: Buchthalen Post a short bus ride from the Schaffhausen train station. This is an A to B run, A being ‘Buchthalen Post’ and B being the on in!

Why: it’s about time Greater Schaffhausen was explored!;-)
Directions: As you leave the main entrance of the Schaffhausen train station, head right and make for bus number 5 à check attached map!

Left luggage: use lockers at the station as no such facility is available at the start of the run.

On after and also end of the trail: Ristorante Pizzeria Gallo d'Oro – a lovely Italian place run by Sri Lankans; within close proximity of trains and buses 

Volunteer hare: our best, Happie Chappie
# phone: 078 714 74 65
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*Those of you who’ve been fortunate enough to hear Munot’s bell chime may have wondered what happened to the poor old bell. Now, of course, like so often in life, there’s a story to it, and a sad one too. What today sounds like a club banging violently against a rubbish container, was, back in 16th century Schaffhausen, a beautiful chime, a call for all hard working (office jobs were not common back then) men to return home to their wives and families and to retire for the day. At 9 pm sharp, each night, the bell was rung by the hands of the ringer and keeper of the fortress (this is true to the very day, though the domestic arrangements may have slightly changed), and the heavy iron gates of the town wall were shut and locked against all evil.
 
Not so in 1545 when the ringer was so much in love that he’d often forget time. He’d rush up the bell tower well after curfew and ring the bell. The gate keepers got angry and confused, not that they ever complained or showed their anger, they just washed it down in the nearby public houses. The gates were often left unlocked.  This went on for some time seemingly unnoticed and unreported!  History has it that a young damsel, a beautiful daughter of a local farmer, whose beauty so enchanted the boys that the fields were never worked so that she had to be sent into town, was the reason for the infrequent and late ringing. The poor lad plucked every flower, sang every ballad, and even overcame illiteracy and wrote umpteen poems and love letters.  The gate keepers adapted quickly to the new unofficial rules, they just drank their wages and forgot why they ever hated shift work. The gates, unguarded and rather intimidated by the two daunting walls, were invitingly ajar.
 
A constant trickle of foreigners, outsiders and outlandish people accepted the inadvertent invitation and thus breached the town walls. It pains me to continue the story, but this is how sad stories go. The poor lad, had emptied every flower bed, written every word and even invented some and attempted the lute, only to find his love, one fine evening, lost to a contender who not only managed the town walls but also stole her heart.  Lovelorn, beside himself, bereft of words (what good were they anyway) and in tears he ran up the countless steps, and grabbed the rope and pulled it furiously, not out of duty but anger and despair!! Never in Schaffhausen history had or has that bell been rung before or after more violently. The ball banged the tin bronze skin of the bell so hard that it cracked and it made an awful noise and has continued to do so ever since! The gate keepers are said to have wondered briefly, whether they should return to their duties and lock their gates, but ordered another round instead.
 
In 2002 the bell was in urgent need of repair and was therefore sent to Nördlingen, Germany. The bell returned home and for the first time in over 450 years rang, not quite like the bells of Canterbury Cathedral, but like a genuine church bell. The crack was gone and with it the distinctly unauthentic sound, the cries of an old saga! 
 
Want to know what happened next? Come to the 71st run and walk and find out!
 
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On behalf of SH3, the most pram, walker, high-heel and runner-friendly hash north of Zurich, http://www.zh3.ch, east of Basel, http://basel.harrier.eu.org/, and even further north and east of Berne, http://bern.harrier.ch/, (and more down to earth than the Kuala Lumpur hash and much more accessible than the mountain hash in Palena, Chile),
 
DureXcell
 
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