Rings for the finger

by George Frederick Kunz

There is or was a superstition among the Swedish Lapps that at times, on the lonely moorlands, might be seen visionary herds of reindeer, packs of dogs, or even apparitions having the form of Laplanders. When one who sees any such objects goes in pursuit of them, they disappear before they can be reached; if, however, while they are still visible a steel or brass ring is thrown at them, they immediately become real living creatures. Popular legend even has to tell of men or women who in this way have secured wives or husbands, respectively, in reality changelings, trolls, apparently or really transformed into human beings.[536]

An onyx ring is made the cause of a series of wonderful transmigrations in an old-fashioned tale written about 1840 by John Sterling, of whom Thomas Carlyle has left us a most interesting biography.[537] In this story, the hero, a young barrister discouraged in his profession and disappointed in love, finds himself one night in an exceptionally depressed frame of mind. Opening, at chance, an old necromantic work, he is fascinated, perhaps hypnotized, by the vaguely mystic sentences, and is scarcely astonished to perceive, standing before him in his deserted room, what appears to be the figure of an aged man, who in the most-approved magician fashion offers him an onyx ring, engraved with the head of Apollonius of Tyana, and of such virtue that if he puts it on the forefinger of his right hand, he will be able to transfer himself into the body of any existing personage. His identification with the new personality will indeed be so complete, that his old existence will be entirely forgotten. This is to last for a week, at the expiration of which his memory will suddenly be revived for a short time, and he will have the choice to remain as he is, to change his fleshly tabernacle again, or to return to his own body. In the last-named case, however, his special power will be taken from him, and he must continue in his own form.

The offer is accepted and a series of transmigrations begins, in the course of which the hero becomes in turn a baronet, a farmer, a traveler, a divine, a poet, a political reformer and an old basket-maker. In this last avatar he is involuntarily forced to return to his own body, for the basket-maker dies before the week is up. The various characters through whose lives he passes belong to his immediate neighborhood, and the slight plot of the story can thus be carried forward without interruption. When at last the barrister comes to himself, he has just recovered from a long period of unconsciousness, and there is a little intentional uncertainty whether the vision and its consequences really took place, or were only the products of a fevered mind. Among the old basket-maker’s effects is found an onyx ring enclosed in an old box and engraved with a man’s head.

The greater part of the splendid precious stones in the collection of the English banker Henry Philip Hope were set in rings. One of the finest and most interesting of these gems was the beautiful sapphire often called “Le Saphire Merveilleux,” the title of a story written by Mme. de Genlis, who had seen the stone when it formed part of the collection of the Duke of Orleans. Its peculiar charm is that its color changes when seen by artificial light. In daylight it is a beautiful sapphire blue, but by candle light, or other yellow light it acquires an amethystine hue.[538] This fine sapphire, interesting both for its rare dichroism and its historic associations, was sold about 1898 for £700 ($3500). It weighs 19⅛ metric carats. Another attractive gem in the Hope Collection is a cabochon-cut amethyst, engraved in intaglio with the figure of a Bacchante carrying a thyrsus. At the back of the stone are two strata of different colors, one a whitish gray, the other showing brown spots on a velvet ground. This peculiarity has been skilfully utilized by the engraver, who has cut on the stone the form of a panther in relief.[539]

The so-called “Pennsylvania Dutch,” largely Germans from the southern parts of Germany, made, in the early days, rings out of horseshoe nails.[540] The good-luck supposed to be inherent in the horseshoe was probably believed to extend to the detachable nails also, so that these rings might have been looked upon as endowed with magic or talismanic virtue.

Lord Bacon (1561–1626) in his “Sylva Sylvarum,” published in 1626, suggests a curious test of telepathy. This is that two parties to an agreement or contract, should exchange rings, each wearing the other’s ring, and they are then to note whether, in case the contract or promise should be broken by one of the parties, the other would become sensible of this by means of an influence transmitted through the ring. He adds that it has been regarded as a help to the continuance of love to wear a ring or a bracelet of the loved one, but he believes that “this may proceed from exciting the magnetism, which, perhaps, a glove, or other like favour, might do as well.”

The peculiar inherent virtue of a ring given by, or exchanged with, a loved person, renders it far more prized than a merely beautiful or costly ring. While we may regard as superstition any fancy that the material ring possesses any magic quality, that lent to it by association or by memory is none the less real though it is only in the brain or heart of the wearer. The effect of this association of a ring or other jewel with a person is also to be seen in the case of rings bestowed by royal personages as tokens of gratitude or favor. In olden times they were often regarded as amulets and believed to transfer something of the power or genius of the bestower to the recipient. Indeed the qualities were conceived to have embodied themselves in the ornament, which was therefore handed down from generation to generation as a precious heritage, one sure to bring good fortune to the wearer. In the case of lovers the token served as a connecting link, transmitting and transfusing the love sentiment.[541]

Besides the zodiacal, or natal rings, there were also made in mediæval times a number of planetary rings, the metal supposed to be especially under the guardianship of the Sun, Moon or five planets known to the ancient world, being in each case chosen as the material for the ring of the special planet. These rings were frequently set with the precious stone assigned to the planet, and thus a series was obtained of seven rings, each of a different metal and set with a different stone. The sun-ring was of gold with diamond or sapphire; the silver moon-ring bore a rock crystal or a moonstone; the ring of Mars was of iron set with an emerald; for Mercury, the ring was of quicksilver and bore a piece of magnetic iron; Jupiter’s was of tin, the setting being a carnelian; copper was, of course, the material of the Venus-ring (cyprium, copper, being sacred to the Cyprian goddess), and the stone was an amethyst; lastly, the Saturnian ring was of lead and had for setting a turquoise.

Some of the appropriate rings and stones to be worn by those who hope to attract to themselves the favorable influences of Sun, Moon, and planets, are given in the Syro-Arabic work of the eighth or ninth century on the mystic potencies of stones, put forth under the name of Aristotle. For the Sun the stone is rock crystal, which must be set in a gold ring; Mercury’s influence is secured by wearing a piece of magnetite in an electrum setting, and for those wishing the help of the Moon, one of the varieties of onyx is recommended, silver being the metal in which it is to be set.[542]