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Token Rings: France

This story reminds us of the lines in 'Marmion,' by Sir Walter Scott :- The fair Queen of France Sent him a turquoise ring and glove, And charged him as her knight and love For her to break a lance: a fatal gift, as Flodden Field proved.1 In the 'Lays' of Marie, the Princess Guilliadun, having fallen in love with Sir Eliduc, sends him as tokens a ring and a rich girdle.

In the 'Lyfe of Ipomydon,' the manuscript of which is in the Harleian Collection at the British Museum, the queen gives her son a ring-token :- It befell upon a day The queen to her son gan say, In privitie and in counsail, 'Thou hast a brother withouten fail, Privily gotten me upon, Ere I was wedded to any mon.

But hastily he was done fro me, I ne wot if he alive be, And he me sent, this ender (last) year, A rich ring of gold full clear; 1 Pitscottie says 'the Queen of France wrote a love-letter to the King of Scotland, calling him her love, showing him that she had suffered much rebuke in France for defending his honour. She believed surely that he would recompense her with some of his kingly support in her necessity; that is to say, that he would raise her an army and come three foot of ground on English ground for her sake. To that effect she sent him a ring off her finger, with 14,000 French crowns to pay his expenses.' An ever he any brother had, That I should give it him, he bade; That where he come, among high or low, By that ring he should him know.

Than take this ring, my son, of me:

In what country that he be, Who that knoweth this ilke ring, He is thy brother without lesing.' Ipomydon accepts the ring, and promises to spare no pains in searching for its original proprietor, who, after various adventures, is found in the person of Sir Campanys, with whom he has an encounter, during which the latter discovers his mother's ring on the finger of Ipomydon.

In the romance of 'Sir Isumbras,' when he and his wife and child are taken prisoners by the 'Soudan,' the lady, before her separation from her husband and child- -callyd hir lorde to hir agayne, A rynge was thaire takynnynge.

The mother of Sir Perceval of Galles gives him a ringtoken :- His moder gaffe hym a ryng, And bad he solde agayne it bryng; 'Sonne, this salle be oure takynnynge, For here I salle the byde.' The knight sets forth on his travels, and soon changes the ring for another :- Thofe he were of no pryde Forthirmore ganne he glyde Tille a chambir ther besyde, Moo sellys to see; Riche clothes faude he sprede A lady slepuned on a bedde He said, 'forsothe a tokyne to wedde Salle thou lefe with mee;' Ther he kyste that swete thynge, Of hir fynger he tuke a rynge, His aweune moder takynnynge He lefte with that fre.

In the very pretty poem of 'Lay le Fraine,' by Marie, the lady of a knight, 'a proud dame and malicious,' having twins, consigns the charge of one of them to a confidential servant, to be taken away and left to the mercy of anyone who might find it. At the same time, that the child might be known to have been born of noble parents, she took a rich mantle lined with fur- And lapped the little maiden therein, And took a ring of gold fine, And on her right arm it knit With a lace of silk in plit.

The child is placed in a hollow ash-tree, near a nunnery, by the maid, and on being discovered by the porter is taken to the abbess, by whom she is reared and becomes an accomplished and beautiful maiden. A rich knight falls in love with her and persuades her to live with him in his castle, to which she repairs, and With her took she no thing But her pel, and her ring.

The lord, however, is induced to marry her sister, taking Le Fraine with him to the wedding, who places on her bed in her room the magnificent 'pel,' or mantle, by which and the ring she is discovered by her mother.

In the romance of the 'Seven Wise Masters' (Cotton MSS.) is a story, 'The Two Dreams,' in which a ring displays a prominent feature.

In the ballad of the 'Lass of Lochroyan' (' Minstrelsy of. the Scottish Border ') Lord Gregory says :- 'Gin thou be Annie of Lochroyan (As I trow thou binna she), Now tell me some of the love-token That passed between thee and me.

O dinna ye mind, Lord Gregory, As we sat at the wine, We changed the rings from our fingers, And I can show thee thine ?

O yours was gude and gude enough, But aye the best was mine; For yours was of the gude red gowd, But mine o' the diamond fine.' In the ballad of 'Cospatrick' (the designation of the Earl of Dunbar in the days of Wallace and Bruce) we have :- 'He gae to me a gay gowd ring, And bade me keep it abune a' thing." 'And what did you wi' the gay gowd ring I bade you keep abune a' thing?' 'I gae them to a ladye gay I met in greenwood on a day.' In the ballad of 'Prince Robert,' Prince Robert has wedded a gay ladye He has wedded her with a ring, Prince Robert has wedded a gay ladye, But he darna bring her hame.