The Magic Ring
One of the earliest values found in rings was doubtless magic. This worked in many ways, according to the beliefs of different times and peoples. Simply to put a ring on another person’s finger was to bind that person to you—an early magical belief which has endured as a symbol in the engagement and the wedding ring. To protect the wearer against the powers of evil in the world, rings are adorned with potent gems, or carved with potent symbols. Turn the emerald in a ring on a poised snake, and the snake was stricken blind, as the nineteenth-century poet Moore remembers in Lalla Rookh:
Blinded like serpents when they gaze
Upon the emerald’s virgin blaze.
The snake itself, being associated with the sybils and other prophets of old and linked with man in earliest Bible story and man’s most fateful hour, is also a most potent and frequent device. It might be carved upon the ring, or the whole ring itself might represent a serpent, eating its own tail—like the worm Ouroboros that winds around the world and keeps it from bursting asunder—or with its head nestling upon its body, watching for the approach of danger. Being itself a lurking danger, the snake obviously was most fit to search out hidden evil. A snake ring of gold with ruby eyes was often on the finger of George IV of England.
Divining Rings
Rings of hieroglyphic symbols, the sphinx, or later cabalistic devices, were used by diviners and seers. Sometimes, to the unwitting eye, the ring seemed an innocent adornment; when a soothsayer wished to make use of a magic formula, a cunningly hinged portion opened to reveal the mystical designs. In the Middle Ages, rings of astrologers and soothsayers multiplied. Rings with signs of the zodiac were used to cast a nativity. The powers of numbers were explored and exploited on rings. The word A B R A X A S, frequent on rings of the time, is said to have drawn its special power from the number force of the letters, which add up to 365 and thus encompass the entire year. Perhaps that is why Leap Year is said to be unlucky for men.
A common design, born no doubt of the early sphinx, was the figure of a fantastic monster compounded of many beasts. Imagination created many of these hybrid and extremely powerful forms. Associated with the A B R A X A S was a creature with the head of a cock, the body of a man with outstretched hands holding a shield and a whip, the legs spread out and becoming serpents with darting fangs. Especially sought for security against shipwreck was a ring engraved with a human head adorned with an elephant’s trunk grasping a trident, symbol of mastery over the sea.
Renaissance Remedy Rings
The Renaissance, resplendent with rings, made many to be used as amulets to bring good fortune, or charms to ward off evil. Cellini made several such for his noble patrons; they seemed, however, not to stem the tide of sudden deaths. Against various vindictive powers special gems were once more utilized, jacinth to bring good fortune to voyagers, sapphires to keep the eyes keen (as some today employ the humbler carrot), garnet to soothe the bite of hornet or wasp.