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Ring Superstitions: Arnulphus

The Rev. C. W. King, in his 'Handbook of Engraved Gems,' gives the following fish-and-ring story. Pietrus Damianus, a very unlikely personage to have ever read of Polycrates, relates in his Fifth Epistle a story worth translating literally, as a specimen of the style of thought of his age:- This Arnulphus was the father of King Pepin and grandfather of Charlemagne, and when, inflamed with the fervour of the Holy Ghost he sacrificed the love of wife and children, and exchanged the glory and pomps of this world for the glorious poverty of Christ, it chanced, as he was hastening into the wilderness, that in his way he had to cross a river, which is called the Moselle; but when he reached the middle of the bridge, thrown over it where the river's stream ran deepest, he tossed in there his own ring with this protestation, "When I shall receive back," said he, "this ring from the foaming waves of this river, then will I trust confidently that I am loosed from the bonds of all my sins." Thereupon he made for the wilderness, where he lived no little space dead unto himself and the world. Meanwhile, the then Bishop of Metz having died, Divine Providence raised Arnulphus to the charge of that see. Continuing in his new office LL2 APPENDIX. to abstain from eating flesh, according to the rule observed by him in the wilderness, once upon a time a fish was brought him for a present. The cook, in gutting the same, found in its entrails a ring, and ran full of joy to present it to his master; which ring the blessed Bishop no sooner cast eyes upon than he knew it again for his own, and wondered not so much at the strange mine that had brought forth the metal, as that, by the Divine propitiation, he had obtained the forgiveness of his sins.' The same distinguished writer, in the work before mentioned, relates the story told by St. Augustine, bishop of the city where it happened, and who has deemed it worthy of insertion in his great work, "De Civitate Dei" (xxii. 8) :- "There lived an old man, a fellow-townsman of ours at Hippo, Florentius by name, by trade a tailor, a religious poor person. He had lost his cloak and had not wherewith to buy another. Certain ribald youths who happened to be present overheard him, and followed him as he went down, mocking at him as though he had demanded of the martyrs the sum of fifty folles (12) denarii) to clothe himself withal. But Florentius walking on without replying to them, espied a big fish thrown up by the sea, and struggling upon the beach, and he secured it through the goodnatured assistance of the same youths, and sold it for 300 folles (75 denarii) to a certain cook, by name Carthosus, a good Christian, for pickling, telling him at the same time all that had taken place-intending to buy wool with the money, so that his wife might make therewith, as well as she could, something to clothe him. But the cook in cutting up the fish found in its belly a gold ring, and forthwith, being moved with compassion, as well as influenced by religious scruples, restored it to Florentius, saying, 'Behold how the Twenty Martyrs have clothed thee.'"" King Edward's Ring. P. 119.

In the Life of Edward the Confessor' (forming one of the series of the chronicles and memorials of Great Britain and Ireland, during the Middle Ages, published by the authority of H.M. Treasury, under the direction of the Master of the Rolls), Mr. Luard, the editor, has given the translation of a manuscript in the public library of the University of Cambridge, APPENDIX.