What is the meaning of the saying hells bells and cockle shells,and everything in between?

erm..crap, crap and blah, blah???

i d'know. ? :

What is the meaning of the saying hells bells and cockle shells,and everything in between?
Hells Bells is a variety of hot peppers and beleive me they are hot way hotter than a habenero or tia dragon so do you think it has to do with the very hot to not so hot?
Reply:It's like saying GD it, blah, blah, blad , %#@%26amp;*%$#@%26amp;% F*** it
Reply:i think its to do with medieval mystery plays, such as the chester cycle for corpus christi, where a succession of plays from creation to doomsday were told on pageant wagons which were moved around the town. these plays involved instruments, and hell was always symbolised by loud noise, percussion - so discordant bells could be used. never heard the bit about cockle shells, sorry.
Reply:The expression denotes extreme surprise. The bells of hell tolled to signify the arrival of a wicked person when they died. Cockle shells were the symbol of St James and were worn on pilgrim's hats in mediaeval times to show that they had visited the shrine of St James of Compostela. Therefore the symbology is of the very wicked and the very good - and everything in between.
Reply:It's just an exclamation of surprise or consternation. I think the cockleshells got in there for the sake of rhyming. Other variants are hell's bells and little fishes, hell's bells and buckets of blood. I know hell's bells is a nautical idiom dating from the early twentieth century, but don't know the origin.