I have already mentioned how, from the earliest times, the ring was considered to denote peculiar distinction, and was the emblem of nobility; and so, amidst many divergences, it still continued to a later period to be considered as a badge of honourable birth. Thus Rabelais alludes to the rings that Gargantua wore because his father desired him ‘to renew that ancient mark of nobility.’ On the forefinger of his left hand he had a gold ring set with a large carbuncle, and on the middle finger one of mixed metal, then usually made by alchemists. On the middle finger of the right hand he had ‘a ring made spire-wise, wherein was set a perfect balew ruby, a pointed diamond, and a Physon emerald of inestimable value.’ The French expression _une bague au doigt_ means a sinecure--pay without the work. In former times the victor in a wrestling match received a ram and a ring. In the Coke’s ‘Tale of Gamelyn,’ ascribed to Chaucer, we read:-- There happed to be there beside Tryed a wrestling; And therefore there was y setten, A ram and als a ring. And in the ‘Litil Geste of Robin Hood’:-- By a bridge was a wrestling, And there tayred was he; And there was all the best yemen Of all the west countrey. A full fayre game there was set up, A white bull up yspight, A great courser with saddle and brydle, With gold burnished full bryght; A payre of gloves, a red golde ringe, A pipe of wine, good fay; What man bereth him best, I wis, The prize shall bear away. So Sir Walter Scott, in the ‘Lady of the Lake’:-- Prize of the wrestling-match, the King To Douglas gave a golden ring. In the ‘Gulistan,’ or rose-garden of Sadi, is a pretty story in connection with a prize-ring for shooting. A certain King of Persia had a very precious stone in a ring. One day he went out with some of his favourite courtiers, to amuse himself, to the mosque near Shiraz, called Musalla; and commanded that they should suspend the ring over the dome of Azad, saying that the ring should be the property of him who could send an arrow through it. It so befell that four hundred archers, who plied their bows in his service, shot at the ring, and all missed. A stripling at play was shooting arrows at random from a monastery, when the morning breeze carried his shaft through the circle of the ring. The prize was bestowed upon him, and he was loaded with gifts beyond calculation. The boy, after this, burned his bow and arrows. They asked him why he did so; he replied: ‘That my first glory may remain unchanged.’ At the tournaments held in the reign of Henry VII. (1494) a proclamation was put forth ‘that hoo soo ever justith best in the justys roiall schall have a ryng of gold, with a ruby of the value of a m{l} scuttes or under; and hoo soo ever torneyeth the best, and fairyst accumplishit his strokkis schall have a ryng of gold, with a diamant of like value.’