RING SUPERSTITIONS.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XLVI, Issue 93, 1 May 1925, Page 2 (Supplement)

RING SUPERSTITIONS.

SOME CURIOUS RELICS AND LEGENDS.

From the earliest times linger rings have been associated with superstition (says “John o’ London’s Weekly”). They were believed to cure the “evil eye,” to counteract the influence of demons, and to act for the wearer as guardians against ill-for-tune. The ring of King Solomon was reputed to assist him in his judicial decisions. Chaucer, in his “Squire’s Tale,” says:— Of crafte of ringes heard they never one, Save that lie, Moses, and King Solomon Hadden a name of cunning in such art.

One day, according to an Arabian legend, a Jewess stole this ring and threw it into the sea. For forty days Solomon went without administering justice until the ring was found in the stomach of a fish served at his table. The legend of the fish and the ring is common in most countries. A salmon bearing a ring in its mouth is incorporated in the arms of the City of Glasgow. The ring worn by Gyges, King of Lydia, had the power of rendering the wearer invisible. According to Plato, Gyges used this ring to obtain possession of the kingdom of Candaules.

Pliny mentions that rings of jet had the power to drive awry serpents. This belief .was also shared by the Venerable Bede, who records it in his account of the mineral production of Britain. An emerald was worn to guard against impurity of action and thought. An elephant’s head with a trident was a protection from the perils of the deep. A king of Ethiopia had an amethyst engraved with a shepherd and his Hock—an antidote against intoxication. Tin- manufacture of charm rings was a thriving trade in ancient Athens. These rings were made of bone, wood, or any base metal, and were sold for one drachma, complete with charm. The Greeks believed that a portrait of Alexander the Great worn in n ring would ensure prosperity. Piers Plowman writes of a woman whose fingers were all embellished with rings of gold and also Oriental stones or amulets to prevent any poisonous infection.

Relics of the saints were frequently worn in rings. It was thought that the larger the jewels set round a holy relic the greater would he its power. Lieeti, a doctor of Genoa, who wrote a hook on rings in the seventeenth century held that the bigger the ring the better the cure. Until quite recently the belief that rings could’ cure diseases was held by many. The “London Medical Journal” for 1815 reports that a silver ring worn constantly by the patient cured a case of epilepsy when ordinary medical means had failed. There was a superstition in Somerset that a gold ring rubbed on the eye was a certain cure for a stye. In the absence of a gold ring the mere rubbing of the ringfinger on the part would have the same effect.