Brand, in his ‘Popular Antiquities,’ states that in Berkshire a ring made from a piece of silver collected at the Communion is supposed to be a cure for convulsions and fits of every kind. If collected on Easter Sunday its efficacy is greatly increased. Silver is not considered necessary in Devonshire, where a ring is preferred made out of three nails or screws that have been used to fasten a coffin, and that have been dug out of the churchyard. It is curious to notice that, according to Pliny, the ancients believed that a nail drawn out of a sepulchre and placed on the threshold of a bed-chamber door would drive away phantoms in the night.
In Lucian’s ‘Philopseudes’ one of the interlocutors states ‘that since an Arabian had presented him with a ring made of iron taken from the gallows, together with a written charm, he had ceased to be afraid of the demoniacs, who had been healed by a Syrian in Palestine.’
In the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ for 1794 we are told that a silver ring will cure fits when it is made from five sixpences collected from as many bachelors, to be conveyed by the hands of a bachelor to a smith that is a bachelor. None of the persons who gave the sixpences were to know for what purpose, or to whom they gave them. The ‘London Medical and Physical Journal’ for 1815 notices a charm successfully employed in the cure of epilepsy, after the failure of various medical means. It consisted of a silver ring contributed by twelve young women, and was to be constantly worn on one of the fingers of the patient.
In ‘Notes and Queries’ (vol. i. 2nd series, p. 331) we find a Gloucestershire ring prescription for epilepsy, which shows the persistence of credulity even in the present enlightened period. ‘The curate of Hasfield, going into the house of a parishioner whose daughter was afflicted with epileptic fits, was accosted by the mother of the damsel in a most joyous tone: “Oh! sir, Emma has got her ring.” The good curate, fearing that the poor girl might have stooped to folly, and that this was an intimation that her swain intended to make an honest woman of her, sought an explanation, which was afforded in the following prescription:—“Why, you see, sir, our Emma has been long troubled with the fits, and she went to the church door, and asked a penny from every unmarried man that went in, till she got twenty-four. She then took them to a silversmith in Gloucester, who promised to get them changed for ‘Sacrament’ money (which he said he could easily do, as he knew one of the cathedral clergy). And with that money, sir, he made her a silver ring, and Emma is wearing it, and has not had a fit since.”’
In Somersetshire it is a popular belief that the ring-finger, stroked along any sore or wound, will soon heal it. All the other fingers would poison the finger instead of healing it. It is still an article of belief in some persons that there is virtue enough in a gold ring to remove a stye from the eye, if it be rubbed with it.
Although silver appears to be the happy medium chiefly in these wonderful cures, yet we are told that Paracelsus had a ring made of a variety of metallic substances, which he called electrum, and which not only cured epilepsy, but almost every other complaint.
At the meeting of the ‘Society of Antiquaries’ (June 12, 1873) a very interesting collection of so-called Tau (T) rings were exhibited by Octavius Morgan, Esq., F.R.S., F.S.A. These, bearing the mystical emblem of the T (tau), are by no means of frequent occurrence, and it is not likely that so many were ever brought together before. The tau was early esteemed a sacred symbol, and was considered to be the mark placed on the forehead, as mentioned in the Bible. ‘I have,’ remarks Mr. Morgan, ‘in my collection a champlevé enamel of the thirteenth century, where the “man in the linen garment,” as mentioned in Ezekiel ix., is represented marking the T on the forehead of the faithful children of Israel. A mystical virtue was attached to this T, and, in company with the word ANANIZAPTA—which, being faithfully translated from the Chaldee, according to the Rev. C. W. King, means, “Have mercy on us, O Judge”—was thought a most powerful prophylactic against epilepsy.’
A description of these curious rings will be found in the ‘Proceedings of the Society’ (vol. vi. No. 1, pp. 51, 53).
A toadstone ring (the fossil palatal tooth of a species of Ray) was supposed to protect new-born children and their mothers from the power of the fairies; and this continued a late-day superstition, for Joanna Baillie, in a letter to Sir Walter Scott, mentions one having been repeatedly borrowed from her mother for that purpose. It was believed also to be a specific in cases of diseased kidney, when immersed in water which was drunk by the patient.
In the inventory of the Duke de Berry is mentioned ‘une crapaudine assize en un annel d’or;’ also, in the inventory of the Duke of Burgundy, we find ‘deux crapaudines, l’une en ung anneau d’or, l’autre en ung anneau d’argent.’ These were highly esteemed for their magical properties, as I have remarked, and were probably also worn to prevent the administration of poison, being supposed to indicate its presence by perspiring and changing colour. Fenton, who wrote in 1569, says, ‘Being used in rings they give forewarning of venom.’ In Ben Jonson’s ‘Fox’ (ii. 5) it is thus alluded to:—