A greate courser, with saddle and brydle,
With gold burnished full bright;
A paire of gloves, a red golde ring,
A pipe of wyne, good fay.
What man berest him best, I wist,
The prize shall bear away.
Rings were proffered as bribes: in the old legend of King Estmere, the porter of King Adlan’s hall is bribed by that monarch and his brother, disguised as harpers, to admit them:—
Then they pulled out a ryng of gold,
Layd itt on the porter’s arme,
‘And ever we will thee, proud porter,
Thou wilt saye us no harme.’
Sore he looked on King Estmère,
And sore he handled the ryng,
Then opened to them the fayre hall gates,
He lett for no kind of thyng.
The lady, King Adlan’s daughter, for whose sake the ring is given, is thus described:—
The talents of gold were on her head sette,
Hanged low down to her knee;
And everye ring on her small fingèr
Shone of the chrystall free.
In the romance of ‘Earl Richard,’ we have another instance of a ring fee, or bribe, to a porter:—
She took a ring from her finger
And gave’t the porter for his fee,
Says, ‘tak you that, my good porter,
And bid the queen speak to me.’
In the capital ballad of the ‘Baffled Knight,’ or ‘Lady’s Policy,’ the latter in answer to the overtures of her drunken wooer says:—
Oh, yonder stands my steed so free,
Among the cocks of hay, sir;
And if the pinner should chance to see
He’ll take my steed away, sir.
The Knight rejoins:—