CHAPTER FIVE.
RINGS OF LOVE, AFFECTION AND FRIENDSHIP.
1. The Gimmal or Gimmow Ring. 2. Sonnet by Davison. 3. Church Marriage ordained by Innocent III.; and, Marriage-Ring. 4. Rings used in different countries on Marriages and in Betrothment: Esthonia; the Copts; Persia; Spain; Ackmetchet in Russia. 5. Betrothal Rings. 6. Signets of the first Christians. 7. Laws of Marriage. 8. Wedding Finger; Artery to the Heart; Lady who had lost the Ring Finger. 9. Roman Catholic Marriages. 10. Marriage-Ring during the Commonwealth. 11. Ring in Jewish Marriages. 12. Superstitions. 13. Rings of twisted Gold-wire given away at Weddings. 14. Cupid and Psyche. 15. St. Anne and St. Joachim. 16. Rush Rings. 17. Rings with the Orpine Plant. 18. Ancient Marriage-Rings had Mottoes and Seals. 19. The Sessa Ring. 20. Rings bequeathed or kept in Memory of the Dead: Washington; Shakspeare; Pope; Dr. Johnson; Lord Eldon; Tom Moore’s Mother. 21. The Ship Powhattan. 22. Ring of Affection illustrated by a Pelican and Young. 23. Bran of Brittany. 24. Rings used by Writers of Fiction; Shakspeare’s Cymbeline. 25. Small Rings for the Penates. 26. Story from the “Gesta Romanorum.”
§ 1. One of the prettiest tokens of friendship and affection is what is termed a Gimmal or Gimmow Ring. It is of French origin. This ring is constructed, as the name imports, of twin or double hoops, which play within one another, like the links of a chain. Each hoop has one of its sides flat and the other convex; and each is twisted once round and surmounted with an emblem or motto. The course of the twist, in each hoop, is made to correspond with that of its counterpart, so that, on bringing together the flat surfaces of the hoops, these immediately unite in one ring.[305]
This form of ring is connected with the purest and highest acts of friendship; it became a simple love token; and was, at length, converted into the more serious sponsalium annulus, or ring of affiance.
The lover putting his finger through one of the hoops and his mistress hers through the other, were thus symbolically yoked together; a yoke which neither could be said wholly to wear, one half being allotted to the other; and making, as it has been quaintly said, a joint tenancy.
Dryden describes a gimmal ring in his play of Don Sebastian:[306]