The late Professor De Morgan, in ‘Notes and Queries’ (December 21, 1861), related an instance of a recovered ring, which (although not vouching for its truth) he states as having been commented upon nearly fifty years ago in the country town close to which the scene is placed, with all degrees of belief and unbelief. A servant-boy was sent into the town with a valuable ring. He took it out of the box to admire it, and in passing over a plank bridge he let it fall on a muddy bank. Not being able to find it he ran away, took to the sea, and finally settled in a colony, made a large fortune, came back after many years, and bought the estate on which he had been a servant. One day, while walking over his land with a friend, he came to the plank bridge, and there told his friend the story. ‘I could swear,’ he said, pushing his stick into the mud, ‘to the very spot where the ring was dropped:’ when the stick came back the ring was on the end of it.
A large silver signet-ring was lost by a Mr. Murray, in Caithness, as he was walking one day on a shingly beach bounding his estate. Fully a century afterwards it was found in the shingle in fair condition, and restored to Mr. Murray’s remote heir, Sir Peter Murray Thrieplund, of Fingask.
The truth of a similarly recovered ring I am able to attest from my acquaintance with the late Mrs. Drake, of Pilton, near Barnstaple, to whose family the incident refers. The husband of this lady, while with her in a boat off Ilfracombe about fifteen years ago, lost a valuable ring. Of course no hopes were ever entertained of its recovery. In 1869, however, the ring was picked up on the beach at Lee, near Ilfracombe, by a little child who was living in the valley. The ring was readily identified, as it bore the inscription: ‘John, Lord Rollo, born Oct. 16, 1751, died April 3, 1842.’
In the bed of the river in the parish of Fornham St. Martin, in Suffolk, was found, some years since, a gold ring with a ruby, late in the possession of Charles Blomfield, Esq., which is conjectured by some to be the ring that the Countess of Leicester is related (by Matthew Paris) to have thrown away in her flight after the battle of Fornham St. Genevieve, October 16, 1173. The Earl and Countess of Leicester were taken prisoners at this battle.
A matron of East Lulworth lost her ring one day: two years afterwards she was peeling some potatoes brought from a field half-a-mile distant from the cottage, and upon dividing one discovered her ring inside.
A Mrs. Mountjoy, of Brechin, when feeding a calf, let it suck her fingers, and on withdrawing her hand found that her ring had disappeared. Believing the calf was the innocent thief, she refused to part with it, and after keeping the animal for three years, had it slaughtered, and the ring was found in the intestines.
A wealthy German farmer, living near Nordanhamn, was making flour-balls in 1871 for his cattle. At the end of his work he missed his ring, bearing his wife’s name. Soon afterwards the farmer sold seven bullocks, which the purchaser shipped to England, on board the ‘Adler’ cattle-steamer on October 26. Two days afterwards an English smack, the ‘Mary Ann’ of Colchester, picked up at sea the still warm carcass of a bullock, which was opened by the crew to obtain some fat for greasing the rigging. Inside the animal they found a gold ring inscribed with the woman’s name and the date 1860. Captain Tye reported the circumstance as soon as he arrived in port, and handed the ring over to an official, who sent it up to London. The authorities set to work to trace its ownership, and found that the only ship reporting the loss of a beast that could have passed the ‘Mary Ann’ was the steamer ‘Adler,’ from which a bullock supposed to be dead, had been thrown overboard on October 28. Meanwhile, the ‘Shipping Gazette’ recording the finding of the ring had reached Nordanhamn, and one of its readers there had recognised the name inscribed upon it; communications were opened with the farmer, and in due time he repossessed his ring.
In the chapter on ‘Ring Superstitions’ allusion is made to the marvellous stories of rings found in the bodies of fishes. An instance, however, of this character was mentioned in the newspapers lately, as having occurred at St. John’s, Newfoundland. It is said that a signet-ring bearing the monogram ‘P.B.’ was discovered by a fisherman in the entrails of a cod-fish caught in Trinity Bay. The fisherman, John Potter, kept the prize in his possession for some time, but, the incident getting known, he was requested by the colonial secretary to send or bring the ring to St. John’s, as he had received letters from a family named Burnam, of Poole, England, stating that they had reason to feel certain that the ring once belonged to Pauline Burnam, who was one of the several hundred passengers of the Allan steamship ‘Anglo-Saxon,’ which was wrecked off Chance Bay (N.F.) in 1861, the said Pauline Burnam being a relative of theirs. The fisherman, in whose possession the ring was, brought it to St. John’s, and presented it at the colonial secretary’s office. After a brief delay he was introduced to a Mr. Burnam, who at once identified the object as the wedding-ring of his mother, and which she had always worn since her marriage at Huddersfield, in the year 1846. The ring was accordingly given up to Mr. Burnam, who rewarded the fortunate finder with fifty pounds.
On October 7, 1868, some fishermen, throwing their nets in the Volga, captured a sturgeon, which was found to be the same as that which his Imperial Highness the heir-presumptive of the Russian crown had accepted as an offering in 1866 from the municipality of Nijni. At the desire of the Prince the fish was restored to the sea. Its identity was proved by a silver ring attached to the right gill of the fish, on which was inscribed the date, Aug. 27, 1866. Another similar ring, which had been attached to the left gill, had disappeared.
It is to be presumed that the sturgeon was returned to the water with some mark to indicate the period at which it was re-captured. Some time after this occurrence a similar case occurred in the Volga, when another sturgeon, which had been offered as a present to the late Emperor Nicholas, and had been recommitted to its native element, was taken alive, and recognised by the rings attached to it.