[Illustration: Jewish wedding ring, with five bosses and as bezel a projecting figure. This is hinged and covers a gold plate. On the inside _Mazzel Tob_ or “Good Luck” British Museum] [Illustration: Jewish marriage ring. Gold hoop with five bosses of filigree enriched with flowers in pale blue, green and white enamel, and a gable-like projection with two small windows. Nürnberg. Sixteenth Century British Museum] [Illustration: Jewish wedding ring; broad gold hoop, the sides showing the Creation of Eve, the Fall, and the Expulsion from Eden. German. Sixteenth Century British Museum] At weddings in Spain and also in some parts of France, in connection with the bestowal of a ring, the curious usage has been observed of giving thirteen pieces of money to the bride. This gift, called in French a _treizain_, has its origin, as the name indicates, in the ancient custom of giving to the purchaser of a dozen articles, an extra one, ostensibly as a testimonial of good will, but really to induce further purchases. This old usage is said to have been observed at the marriage of King Alfonso XIII of Spain in 1906. The Hebrew betrothal rings were elaborate and somewhat clumsy productions, frequently of massive gold. The broad hoop was surmounted by the representation of a temple, sometimes with a Moorish dome, but usually with a slanting roof. This is a curiously conventionalized figuration of Solomon’s Temple, similar to that found upon certain spurious Hebrew coins. Upon the temple or else around the ring, are generally the Hebrew words FIO ERG, equivalent to “Good Fortune.”[370] Several such rings are described in the privately printed catalogue of the Londesborough Collection (London, 1853, p. 4). A more artistic specimen, also in the Londesborough Collection, bears the figures of Adam and Eve in Paradise, accompanied by representations of animals, all in high relief.[371] The specimens described belong to the sixteenth century. The learned Jesuit, Athanasius Kircher, cites a statement to the effect that the inscription _mazzel tob_, engraved upon many Hebrew betrothal rings, referred to the planet Jupiter as the “good star.”[372] This planet was, indeed, called by the Hebrews _cocab zedeq_, “star of righteousness” or “justice,” but there is little doubt that _mazzel tob_ should be rendered “good fortune” or “propitious fate.”