Rings worn as amulets against demons, witches, and ghosts. Reason why the Flamen Dialis might not wear knots and rings.
On the other hand, the same constriction which hinders the egress of the soul may prevent the entrance of evil spirits; hence we find rings used as amulets against demons, witches, and ghosts. In the Tyrol it is said that a woman in childbed should never take off her wedding-ring, or spirits and witches will have power over her.[1169] Among the Lapps, the person who is about to place a corpse in the coffin receives from the husband, wife, or children of the deceased a brass ring, which he must wear fastened to his right arm until the corpse is safely deposited in the grave. The ring is believed to serve the person as an amulet against any harm which the ghost might do to him.[1170] The Huzuls of the Carpathians sometimes milk a cow through a wedding-ring to prevent witches from stealing [pg 315] its milk.[1171] In India iron rings are often worn as an amulet against disease or to counteract the malignant influence of the planet Saturn. A coral ring is used in Gujarat to ward off the baleful influence of the sun, and in Bengal mourners touch it as a form of purification.[1172] A Masai mother who has lost one or more children at an early age will put a copper ring on the second toe of her next infant's right foot to guard it against sickness.[1173] Masai men also wear on the middle finger of the right hand a ring made out of the hide of a sacrificial victim; it is supposed to protect the wearer from witchcraft and disease of every kind.[1174] We have seen that magic cords are fastened round the wrists of Siamese children to keep off evil spirits;[1175] that some people tie strings round the wrists of women in childbed, of convalescents after sickness, and of mourners after a funeral in order to prevent the escape of their souls at these critical seasons;[1176] and that with the same intention the Bagobos put brass rings on the wrists or ankles of the sick.[1177] This use of wrist-bands, bracelets, and anklets as amulets to keep the soul in the body is exactly parallel to the use of finger-rings which we are here considering. The placing of these spiritual fetters on the wrists is especially appropriate, because some people fancy that a soul resides wherever a pulse is felt beating.[1178] How far the custom of wearing finger-rings, bracelets, and anklets may have been influenced by, or even have sprung from, a belief in their efficacy as amulets to keep the soul in the body, or demons out of it, is a question which seems worth considering.[1179] Here we are only concerned with the belief in so far as it seems to throw light on the rule that the Flamen Dialis might not wear a ring unless it were broken. Taken in conjunction with the rule which forbade him to [pg 316] have a knot on his garments, it points to a fear that the powerful spirit embodied in him might be trammelled and hampered in its goings-out and comings-in by such corporeal and spiritual fetters as rings and knots. The same fear probably dictated the rule that if a man in bonds were taken into the house of the Flamen Dialis, the captive was to be unbound and the cords to be drawn up through a hole in the roof and so let down into the street.[1180] Further, we may conjecture that the custom of releasing prisoners at a festival may have originated in the same train of thought; it might be imagined that their fetters would impede the flow of the divine grace. The custom was observed at the Greek festival of the Thesmophoria,[1181] and at the Athenian festival of Dionysus in the city.[1182] At the great festival of the Dassera, celebrated in October by the Goorkhas of Nepaul, all the law courts are closed, and all prisoners in gaol are removed from the precincts of the city; but those who are imprisoned outside the city do not have to change their place of confinement at the time of the Dassera.[1183] This Nepaulese custom appears strongly to support the explanation here suggested of such gaol-deliveries. For observe that the prisoners are not released, but merely removed from the city. The intention is therefore not to allow them to share the general happiness, but merely to rid the city of their inopportune presence at the festival.
The Gordian knot was perhaps a royal talisman.
Before quitting the subject of knots I may be allowed to hazard a conjecture as to the meaning of the famous Gordian knot, which Alexander the Great, failing in his efforts to untie it, cut through with his sword. In Gordium, the ancient capital of the kings of Phrygia, there was preserved a waggon of which the yoke was fastened to the pole by a strip of cornel-bark or a vine-shoot twisted and tied in an intricate knot. Tradition ran that the waggon had been dedicated by Midas, the first king of the dynasty, and that whoever untied the knot would be ruler of Asia.[1184] Perhaps [pg 317] the knot was a talisman with which the fate of the dynasty was believed to be bound up in such a way that whenever the knot was loosed the reign of the dynasty would come to an end. We have seen that the magic virtue ascribed to knots is naturally enough supposed to last only so long as they remain untied. If the Gordian knot was the talisman of the Phrygian kings, the local fame it enjoyed, as guaranteeing to them the rule of Phrygia, might easily be exaggerated by distant rumour into a report that the sceptre of Asia itself would fall to him who should undo the wondrous knot.[1185]