‘She was daughter of Ethelwulf by Osburh, daughter of Oslac, the King’s cup-bearer, and must have been many years older than her brother Alfred, as he was only five years old at the time of her marriage.
‘With regard to the inscription within the ring, it may be noticed that it exhibits scarcely any traces of wear, while the edges of the ring show marks of having been long worn. The engraving (which illustrates this explanation in the “Proceedings of the Society”) moreover, scarcely looks like the work of a goldsmith. I would, therefore, suggest that the Queen had probably offered this ring at some shrine, and the priests connected with the shrine had engraved her name within the ring, to record the royal giver. It could scarcely have been deposited in her tomb, as she is recorded to have been buried at Pavia.’
In the rings of King Ethelwulf and his daughter, certain symmetrically-placed portions of the design are not filled with niello. These may (observes Mr. Franks) have been enriched with some coloured mastic now perished. It has been habitual to describe the inlaying of Ethelwulf’s ring as blue enamel, which is certainly an error. Enamel was very seldom employed by the Anglo-Saxon jeweller, and enamel and niello could with difficulty be applied to the same object, on account of the different heat at which these two substances melt.
An illustration of the remarkable ring of the Queen of Mercia is displayed on the cover of this work.
Rings were given in Anglo-Saxon times to propitiate royal favours. Thus, towards the end of the tenth century, Beorhtric, a wealthy noble in Kent, left in his will a ring worth thirty mancuses of gold that the queen might be his advocate that the will should stand. In the Braybrooke Collection is a plain silver ring, inscribed on the top of the exterior of the hoop, with the Anglo-Saxon word ‘Dolȝbot,’ the meaning of which is, compensation made for giving a man a wound, either by a stab or blow. This ring is ornamented by a simple wavy line, and dots, as if to represent a branch, and was found in Essex. From its size, probably a woman’s ring—perhaps for injury, or the death of her husband.
There are various nielloed rings of the Saxon period; notably a gold ring with an inscription, and partly in runes, meaning ‘Alhreds owns me, Eanred engraved (or wrought) me,’ now in the British Museum, which also has a gold ring with two facets, found in the river Nene, near Peterborough, engraved in the Archæological Institute Proceedings for 1856.
Anglo-Saxon.
Plain wire rings were used by the South Saxons; specimens have been obtained in Anglo-Saxon grave-mounds in England, and others, identical in form, in the old Saxon cemeteries in Germany. Mr. Fairholt says: ‘In the museum at Augsburg are several, which were found in cutting for the railway near that city. One of the plain wire rings’ (the first of our illustrations) ‘was exhumed from a tumulus on Chartham Downs, a few miles from Canterbury, in 1773, by the Rev. Bryan Faussett, who says: “The bones were those of a very young person. Upon the neck was a cross of silver, a few coloured earthen beads, and two silver rings with sliding knots.” The second illustration—a wire ring, twisted so as to resemble a seal ring—was discovered in a Saxon cemetery on Kingston Downs, Canterbury.’
