Rings were given in Anglo-Saxon times to propitiate royal favours. Thus, towards the end of the tenth century, Beorhtric, a wealthy noble in Kent, left in his will a ring worth thirty mancuses of gold that the queen might be his advocate that the will should stand. In the Braybrooke Collection is a plain silver ring, inscribed on the top of the exterior of the hoop, with the Anglo-Saxon word ‘Dolȝbot,’ the meaning of which is, compensation made for giving a man a wound, either by a stab or blow. This ring is ornamented by a simple wavy line, and dots, as if to represent a branch, and was found in Essex. From its size, probably a woman’s ring--perhaps for injury, or the death of her husband. There are various nielloed rings of the Saxon period; notably a gold ring with an inscription, and partly in runes, meaning ‘Alhreds owns me, Eanred engraved (or wrought) me,’ now in the British Museum, which also has a gold ring with two facets, found in the river Nene, near Peterborough, engraved in the Archæological Institute Proceedings for 1856. [Illustration: Anglo-Saxon.] Plain wire rings were used by the South Saxons; specimens have been obtained in Anglo-Saxon grave-mounds in England, and others, identical in form, in the old Saxon cemeteries in Germany. Mr. Fairholt says: ‘In the museum at Augsburg are several, which were found in cutting for the railway near that city. One of the plain wire rings’ (the first of our illustrations) ‘was exhumed from a tumulus on Chartham Downs, a few miles from Canterbury, in 1773, by the Rev. Bryan Faussett, who says: “The bones were those of a very young person. Upon the neck was a cross of silver, a few coloured earthen beads, and two silver rings with sliding knots.” The second illustration--a wire ring, twisted so as to resemble a seal ring--was discovered in a Saxon cemetery on Kingston Downs, Canterbury.’ [Illustration: Early Saxon rings, found near Salisbury.] The simplest form of finger-ring worn by our ancestors, consisted of a band of metal, merely twisted round to embrace the finger, and open at either end. One of these rings found upon the finger-bone of an early Saxon, in excavating at Harnham Hill, near Salisbury, was found on the middle finger of the right hand of a person of advanced age. Sometimes several rings were found on one hand. Among the bones of the fingers of the left hand of an adult skeleton was found a silver ring of solid form, another of spiral form, and a plain gold ring. Mr. Akerman, who superintended these researches, says: ‘Similar rings have been found at Little Wilbraham, at Linton Heath, at Fairford, and other localities. They are, for the most part, of a uniform construction, being so contrived that they could be expanded or contracted, and adapted to the size of the finger of the wearer.’ [Illustration: South Saxon ring, found in the Thames.]