Home › Ring Superstitions › Ring Superstitions: Hynd

Ring Superstitions: Hynd

Ben Jonson and Drayton also refer to the same superstition. The change of colours¹ in stones, portent of evil, was a deep-set superstition in most parts of the world. In the Scotch ballad of 'Hynd Horn' we find :- 1 A modern poet thus apostrophises the turquoise and its changeful properties in the following beautiful sonnet :- 'In sunny hours, long flown, how oft my eyes Have gazed with rapture on thy tender blue !

Turquoise! thou magic gem, thy lovely hue Vies with the tints celestial of the skies.

What sweet romance thy beauty bids arise, When, beaming brightly to the anxious view, Thou giv'st th' assurance dear that love is true !

But should thy rays be clouded, what deep sighs, What showers of tenderness distress the heart !

Ah! much of joy I owe thee, but no woe.

As to my mind, thou ever didst impart That feeling blest which made my pale cheek glow (For love was mine, shorn of his wings and dart).

Turquoise! in warmest strains thy praise should flow, Such as some gifted minstrel could bestow.' And she gave to me a gay gold ring With a hey lillelu and a how lo lau, With three shining diamonds set therein, And the birk and the brume blooms bonnie.

What if these diamonds lose their hue, With a hey lillelu and a how lo lau, Just when my love begins for to rew, And the birk and the brume blooms bonnie.

For when your ring turns pale and wan With a hey lillelu and a how lo lau, Then I'm in love with another man, And the birk and the brume blooms bonnie.

Seven long years he has been on the sea, With a hey lillelu and a how lo lau, And Hynd Horn has looked how his ring may be, And the birk and the brume blooms bonnie.

But when he looked this ring upon, With a hey lillelu and a how lo lau, The shining diamonds were pale and wan, And the birk and the brume blooms bonnie.

Oh! the ring it was both black and blue, With a hey lillelu and a how lo lau, And she's either dead or she's married, And the birk and the brume blooms bonnie.