Superstitions About Rings

Some of the finest scenes in Ariosto are brought out through a magic ring. When it was worn on the finger, it preserved from spell; and carried in the mouth, concealed the possessor from view. Thus, in the Orlando Furioso, where Ruggiero had Angelica in the lone forest and secure from sight, she discovers the magic ring upon her finger which her father had given her when she first entered Christendom and which had delivered her from many dangers.

"Now that she this upon her hand surveys,

She is so full of pleasure and surprise,

She doubts it is a dream and, in amaze,

Hardly believes her very hand and eyes.

Then softly to her mouth the hoop conveys,

And, quicker than the flash which cleaves the skies,

From bold Rogero's sight her beauty shrouds,

As disappears the sun concealed in clouds."

The ring of Gyges is taken notice of both by Plato and Tully. This Gyges was the master shepherd to King Candaules. As he was wandering over the plains of Lydia, he saw a great chasm in the earth and had the curiosity to enter it. After having descended pretty far into it, he found the statue of a horse in brass, with doors in the sides of it. Upon opening of them, he found the body of a dead man, bigger than ordinary, with a ring upon his finger, which he took off and put it upon his own. The virtues of it were much greater than he at first imagined; for, upon his going into the assembly of the shepherds, he observed that he was invisible when he turned the stone of the ring within the palm of his hand and visible when he turned it towards his company. By means of this ring he gained admission into the most retired parts of the court; and made such use of those opportunities that he at length became King of Lydia. The gigantic dead body to whom this ring belonged was said to have been an ancient Brahmin, who, in his time, was chief of that sect.

Addison, in one of his Tatlers, playfully declares he is in possession of this ring and leads his reader through different scenes, commencing thus: "About a week ago, not being able to sleep, I got up and put on my magical ring and, with a thought, transported myself into a chamber where I saw a light. I found it inhabited by a celebrated beauty, though she is of that species of women which we call a slattern. Her head-dress and one of her shoes lay upon a chair, her petticoat in one corner of the room and her girdle, that had a copy of verses made upon it but the day before, with her thread stocking, in the middle of the floor. I was so foolishly officious that I could not forbear gathering up her clothes together to lay them upon the chair that stood by her bedside, when, to my great surprise, after a little muttering, she cried out, "What do you want? Let my petticoat alone."

To have the ring of Gyges is used proverbially sometimes of wicked, sometimes of fickle, sometimes of prosperous people who obtain all they want. It is alluded to in Beaumont and Fletcher's Fair Maid of the Inn :

"--Have you Gyges' ring,

Or the herb that gives invisibility?"

The Welsh Sir Tristram is described as having had, from his mother, a mystical ring, the insignia of a Druid.

Let us now look particularly at the subject of cramp rings.

St. Edward, who died on the fifth of January, 1066, gave a ring which he wore to the Bishop of Westminster. The origin of it is surrounded with much mystery. A pilgrim is said to have brought it to the king and to have informed him that St. John the Evangelist had made known to the donor that the king's decease was at hand. This "St. Edward's Ring," as it was called, was kept for some time at Westminster Abbey as a relic of the saint, and was applied for the cure of the falling sickness or epilepsy and for the cramp. From this arose the custom of the English kings, who were believed to have inherited St. Edward's powers of cure, solemnly blessing every year rings for distribution.

Good Friday was the day appointed for the blessing of rings. They were often called "medycinable rings," and were made both of gold and silver, and the metal was composed of what formed the king's offering to the Cross on Good Friday.

The prayers used at the ceremony of blessing the rings on Good Friday are published in Waldron's Literary Museum; and also in Pegge's Curiatia Miscellanea, Appendix, No. iv. p. 164.

Cardinal Wiseman is in possession of a MS. containing the ceremony of blessing cramp rings. It belonged to the English Queen Mary. At the commencement of the MS. are emblazoned the arms of Philip and Mary, around which are the badges of York and Lancaster and the whole is inclosed within a frame of fruit and flowers.

The first ceremony is headed: "Certain Prayers to be used by the Queen's Leigues in the Consecration of the Crampe Rynges." Accompanying it is an illumination representing the queen kneeling, with a dish--containing the rings to be blessed--on each side of her; and another exhibits her touching for the evil a boy on his knees before her, introduced by the clerk of the closet; his right shoulder is bared and the queen appears to be rubbing it with her hand. The author of the present work caused an application to be made for leave to take a copy of this illumination, so that his readers might have the benefit of it: the secretary of the Cardinal refused.

In a medical treatise, written in the fourteenth century, there is what is called the medicine against the cramp; and modernizing the language, it runs thus: " For the Cramp. Take and cause to be gathered on Good Friday, at 5 Parish Churches, 5 of the first pennies that is offered at the cross, of each Church the first penny; then take them all and go before the cross and say 5 paternosters to the worship of the 5 wounds and beau them on the 5 days, and say each day all much in the same way; and then cause to be made a ring thereof without allou of other metal and write within it Jasper, Batasar, Altrapa" (these are blundered forms of the three kings of Cologne) "and write without Jh'es Nazarenus; and then take it from the goldsmith upon a Friday and say 5 paternosters as thou did before and use it always afterward."

Lord Berners, the translator of Froissart, when at the court of the Emperor Charles the Fifth as ambassador from Henry the Eighth, in a letter dated 21st June, 1518, writes to Cardinal Wolsey : "If your Grace remember me with some crampe rynges, ye shall do a thing much looked for and I trust to bestow thaym well, with Godd's grace."

A letter from Dr. Magnus to Cardinal Wolsey, written in 1526, contains the following : "Pleas it your Grace to wete that M. Wiat of his goodness sent unto me for a present certaine cramp ringges, which I distributed and gave to sondery myne acquaintaunce at Edinburghe, amonges other to Mr. Adame Otterbourne, who, with oone of thayme, releved a mann lying in the falling sekeness, in the sight of myche people; sethenne whiche tyme many requestes have been made unto me for cramp Ringges at my departing there and also sethenne my comyng from thennes. May it pleas your Grace, therefore, to show your gracious pleasure to the said M. Wyat that some Ringges may be kept and sent into Scottelande; which, after my poore oppynyoun, shulde be a good dede, remembering the power and operacion of thaym is knowne and proved in Edinburgh and that they be greatly required for the same cause by grete personnages and others."

The mode of hallowing rings to cure the cramp is found in what is entitled an "Auncient Ordre for the hallowing of Cramp Rings," etc. It is amusing to read of the degrading course which king, queen, ladies and gentlemen had to take, each one creeping along a carpet to a cross. The account runs thus: "Firste, the King to come to the Chappell or clossett, with the lords and noblemen wayting upon him, without any sword borne before hime of that day, and ther to tarrie in his travers until the Bishope and the Deane have brought in the Crucifixe out of the vestrie and laid it upon the cushion, before the highe alter. And then the usher to lay a carpet for the Kinge to creepe to the crosse upon. And that done, there shall be a forme set upon the carpett before the crucifix and a cushion laid upon it for the Kinge to kneel upon. And the Master of the Jewell house ther to be ready with the crampe rings in a bason of silver and the Kinge to kneel upon the cushion before the forme. And then the Clerke of the Closett be readie with the booke concerninge the halowinge of the crampe rings, and the aumer must kneele on the right hand of the Kinge, holdinge the sayd booke. When that is done, the Kinge shall rise and go to the alter, weare a Gent. Usher shall be redie with a cushion for the Kinge to kneele upon; and then the greatest Lords that shall be ther to take the bason with the rings and beare them after the King to offer. And thus done, the Queene shall come down out of her closett or traverss into the Chappell with ladyes and gentlewomen waiting upon her and creepe to crosse, and then go agayne to her clossett or traverse. And then the ladyes to creepe to the crosse likewise, and the Lords and Noblemen likewise."

In 1536, when the convocation under Henry the Eighth abolished some of the old superstitious practices, this of creeping to the cross on Good Friday, etc., was ordered to be retained as a laudable and edifying custom.

Even in the dark ages of superstition, the ancient British kings do not seem to have affected to cure the king's evil or scrofula. This gift was left to be claimed by the Stuarts. The Plantagenets were content to cure the cramp.

In our own time we find three young men in England subscribing sixpence each to be moulded into a ring for a young woman afflicted with the cramp.

In Berkshire, England, there is a popular superstition that a ring made from a piece of silver collected at the Communion is a cure for convulsions and fits of every kind. Another curious British superstition, by way of charm, is recorded: that a silver ring will cure fits if it be made of five sixpences, collected from five different bachelors, to be conveyed by the hand of a bachelor to a smith that is a bachelor. None of the persons who give the sixpences are to know for what purpose or to whom they gave them. While, in Devonshire, there is a notion that the king's evil can be cured by wearing a ring made of three nails or screws which have been used to fasten a coffin that has been dug out of the churchyard.

There is a medical charm in Ireland to cure warts. A wedding-ring is procured and the wart touched or pricked with a gooseberry thorn through the ring.

A wedding-ring rubbed upon that little abscess called a sty, which is frequently seen on the tarsi of the eyes, is said to remove it. In Somersetshire, England, there is a superstition that the ring-finger, stroked along any sore or wound, will soon heal it. All the other fingers are said to be poisonous, especially the forefinger. In Suffolk, England, nine young men of a parish subscribed a crooked sixpence each to be moulded into a ring for a young woman afflicted with fits. The clergy in that country are not unfrequently asked for sacramental silver to make rings of, to cure falling sickness; and it is thought cruel to refuse. There is a singular custom prevailing in some parts of Northamptonshire and probably there are other places where a similar practice exists. If a female is afflicted with fits, nine pieces of silver money and nine three-halfpennies are collected from nine bachelors. The silver money is converted into a ring to be worn by the affiicted person and the three-halfpennies (i.e. 13 1/2d.) are paid to the maker of the ring, an inadequate remuneration for his labor but which he good-naturedly accepts. If the afflicted person be a male, the contributions are levied upon females. In Norfolk a ring was made from nine sixpences freely given by persons of the opposite sex and it was considered a charm against epilepsy. "I have seen," says a correspondent in Notes and Queries, "nine sixpences brought to a silversmith, with a request that he would make them into a ring; but 13 1/2d. was not tendered to him for making nor do I think that any three-halfpennies are collected for payment. After the patient had left the shop, the silversmith informed me that such requests were of frequent occurrence and that he supplied the patients with thick silver rings, but never took the trouble to manufacture them from the sixpences."

Brande, in his Popular Antiquities, says: "A boy, diseased, was recommended by some village crone to have recourse to an alleged remedy, which has actually, in the enlightened days of the nineteenth century, been put in force. He was to obtain thirty pennies from thirty different persons, without telling them why or wherefore the sum was asked; after receiving them, to get them exchanged for a half-crown of sacrament money, which was to be fashioned into a ring and worn by the patient. The pennies were obtained, but the half-crown was wanting--the rector of the place, very properly, declined taking any part in such a gross superstition. However, another reverend gentleman was more pliable; and a ring was formed (or professed to be so) from the half-crown and worn by the boy. A similar instance, which occurred about fourteen years since, has been furnished to the same work by Mr. R. Bond of Gloucester: "The epilepsy had enervated the mental faculties of an individual moving in a respectable sphere in such a degree as to partially incapacitate him from directing his own affairs; and numerous were the recipes, the gratuitous offering of friends, that were ineffectually resorted to by him. At length, however, he was told of what would certainly be an infallible cure, for in no instance had it failed; it was, to personally collect thirty pence, from as many respectable matrons, and to deliver them into the hands of a silversmith, who, in consideration thereof, would supply him with a ring, wrought out of half a crown, which he was to wear on one of his fingers--and the complaint would immediately forsake him. This advice he followed; and for three or four years the ring ornamented (if we may so express it) his fifth or little finger, notwithstanding the frequent relapses he experienced during that time were sufficient to convince a less ardent mind than his that the fits were proof against its influence. Finally, whilst suffering from a last visitation of that distressing malady, he expired, though wearing the ring--thus exemplifying a striking memento of the absurdity of the means he had had recourse to."

Quite recently, a new means has been contrived for deluding the public in the form of rings, which are to be worn upon the fingers and are said to prevent the occurrence of and cure various diseases. They are called galvanic rings. Although by the contact of the two metals of which they are composed an infinitesimally minute current of electricity (hence, also, of magnetism) is generated, still, from the absurd manner in which the pieces of metal composing the ring are arranged and which displays the most profound ignorance of the laws of electricity and magnetism, no trace of the minute current traverses the finger upon which the ring is worn; so that a wooden ring or none at all would have exactly the same effect as regards the magnetism or galvanism.

Epilepsy was to be cured by wearing a ring in which a portion of an elk's horn was to be inclosed; while the hoof of an ass, worn in the same way, had the reputation of preventing conjugal debility.

Michaelis, a physician at Leipsic, had a ring made of the tooth of a sea-horse, by which he pretended to cure diseases of every kind. Rings of lead, mixed with quicksilver, were used against headache; and even the chains of criminals and iron used in the construction of gibbets were applied to the removal of complaints.

Rings simply made of gold were supposed to cure St. Anthony's fire; but, if inscribed with magic words, their power was irresistible.

With regard to rings supposed to possess magical properties, there is one with an inscription in the Runic character, on jasper, being a Dano-Saxon amulet against the plague. The translation is thus given:

"Raise us from dust we pray thee,

From Pestilence, O set us free,

Although the Grave unwilling be."

On another ring, inscribed with similar characters, and evidently intended for the same purpose, the legend is as follows:

"Whether in fever or leprosy, let the patient be happy and confident in the hope of recovery."

Rings against the plague were often inscribed Jesus--Maria--Joseph or I. H. S. Nazarenus--Rex--Judaeorum.