Ring (Luned’s). This ring rendered the wearer invisible. Luned or Lynet gave it to Owain, one of King Arthur’s knights. Consequently, when men were sent to kill him he was nowhere to be found, for he was invisible.
Take this ring, and put it on thy finger, with the stone inside thy hand; and close thy hand upon the stone; and as long as thou concealest it, it will conceal thee.—The Mabinogion (“Lady of the Fountain,” twelfth century).
Ring (The Steel), made by Siedel-Beckir. This ring enabled the wearer to read the secrets of another’s heart.—Comte de Caylus, Oriental Tales (“The Four Talismans,” 1743).
Ring (The Talking), a ring given by Tartaro, the Basque Cyclops, to a girl whom he wished to marry. Immediately she put it on, it kept incessantly saying, “You there, and I here;” so, to get rid of the nuisance, she cut off her finger and threw both ring and finger into a pond.—Rev. W. Webster, Basque Legends, 4 (1876).
The same story appears in Campbell’s Popular Tales of the West Highlands, i. 111, and in Grimm’s tale of The Robber and His Sons. When the robber put on the ring, it incessantly cried out, “Here I am;” so he bit off his finger, and threw it from him.
Ring (The Virgin’s Wedding Ring), kept in the Duomo of Perugia, under fourteen locks.
Ring and the Book (The), an idyllic epic, by Robert Browning, founded on a cause célèbre of Italian history in 1698. The case was this: Guido Franceschini, a Florentine count of shattered fortune, married Pompilia, thinking her to be an heiress. When the young bride discovered that she had been married for her money only, she told her husband she was no heiress at all, but was only the supposititious child of Pietro (2 syl.), supplied by one Violantê, for the sake of keeping in his hands certain entailed property. The count now treated Pompilia so brutally that she ran away from home, under the protection of Caponsacchi, a young priest, and being arrested at Rome, a legal separation took place. Pompilia sued for a divorce, but, pending the suit, gave birth to a son. The count now murdered Pietro, Violantê, and Pompilia, but being taken red-handed, was brought to trial, found guilty, and executed.
Ring the Bells Backwards (To), to ring a muffled peal, to lament. Thus, John Cleveland, wishing to show his abhorrence of the Scotch, says:
How! Providence! and yet a Scottish crew!...
Ring the bells backwards. I am all on fire;
Not all the buckets in a country quire
Shall quench my rage.
The Rebel Scot (1613-1659).
Ringdove (The Swarthy). The responses of the oracle of Dodōna, in Epīros, were made by old women called “pigeons,” who derived their answers from the cooing of certain doves, the bubbling of a spring, a rustling of the sacred oak [or beech], and the tinkling of a gong or bell hung in the tree. The women were called pigeons by a play on the word pelīæ, which means “old women” as well as “pigeons;” and as they came from Libya they were swarthy.