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Customs and Incidents: Byron
In Moore's 'Life of Byron' we have an instance of a lost ring recovered under peculiarly interesting circumstances: 'On the day of the arrival of the lady's (Miss Millbanke) answer, he (Lord Byron) was sitting down to dinner, when his gardener came in, and presented him with his mother's wedding-ring, which she had lost many years before, and which the gardener had just found in digging up the mould under her window. Almost at the same moment, the letter from Miss Millbanke arrived, and Lord Byron exclaimed, "If it contains a consent, I will be married with this very ring." It did contain a very flattering acceptance of his proposal (of marriage), and a duplicate of the letter had been sent to London, in case this should. have missed him.' Among the numerous applications of rings to various purposes, one of the most curious is the custom, once prevalent in the Isle of Man, that if a man grossly insulted a married woman he was to suffer death, but if the woman was unmarried the Deemster, or judge, gave her a rope, a sword, and a ring, and she had it put to her choice either to hang him with the rope, or to cut off his head with the sword, or to marry him with the ring.
In one of Robin Hood's ballads we find that a ring was part of a prize for archery :- A greate courser, with saddle and brydle, With gold burnished full bright; A paire of gloves, a red golde ring, A pipe of wyne, good fay.
What man berest him best, I wist, The prize shall bear away.
Rings were proffered as bribes: in the old legend of King Estmere, the porter of King Adlan's hall is bribed by that monarch and his brother, disguised as harpers, to admit them :- Then they pulled out a ryng of gold, Layd itt on the porter's arme, 'And ever we will thee, proud portèr, Thou wilt saye us no harme.' Sore he looked on King Estmère, And sore he handled the ryng, Then opened to them the fayre hall gates, He lett for no kind of thyng.
The lady, King Adlan's daughter, for whose sake the ring is given, is thus described :- The talents of gold were on her head sette, Hanged low down to her knee; And everye ring on her small fingèr Shone of the chrystall free.
In the romance of 'Earl Richard,' we have another instance of a ring fee, or bribe, to a porter :- She took a ring from her finger And gave't the porter for his fee, Says, 'tak you that, my good porter, And bid the queen speak to me.' In the capital ballad of the 'Baffled Knight,' or 'Lady's Policy,' the latter in answer to the overtures of her drunken wooer says:- Oh, yonder stands my steed so free, Among the cocks of hay, sir; And if the pinner should chance to see He'll take my steed away, sir.