Frediricus, who reigned in a Roman city, had been a long time without offspring. Finally, by the advice of wise counsellors, he married a beautiful girl in parts far distant and lived with her in an unknown land and had offspring. After this, he wished to return to his realm but could not obtain his wife’s consent; indeed, she always repeated that if he abandoned her she would kill herself. Hearing this, the emperor caused two splendid rings to be made, and had engraved upon two gems images of the following efficacy: one of remembrance and the other of forgetfulness. Having set these in their appropriate rings he gave one--that of forgetfulness--to his wife, and kept the other for himself ... The wife began straightway to forget the love of her husband, and the emperor, noting this, journeyed back to his realm with great joy, and never returned to his wife. He ended his life in peace.[506] Welsh legend offers us parallels to the ring of Gyges and to that set with the “Stone of Remembrance” told of in the Gesta Romanorum. In the old Welsh epic, the Mabinogion, the following directions are given by a damsel to her lover in regard to a ring of the former type: “Take this ring and put it on thy finger with the stone within thy hand; and close thy hand upon the stone, and as long as thou concealest it, it will conceal thee.” This Stone of Invisibility was regarded as one of the thirteen rarities of the ancient British regalia, formerly treasured up in Caerleon, Monmouthshire, and in another Welsh legendary cycle (the Triads) it is said to have “liberated Owen, the son of Urien, from between the portcullis and the wall.” Whoever concealed the stone would be concealed by it. Here indeed the similarity with the story told of the ring of Gyges is so close that it is apparent we only have to do with an adaptation of the classic tale. As to the stone of Remembrance, however, the Welsh tradition seems to be essentially an independent one. The Mabinogion makes Iddawe say to Rhonabwy: “Dost thou see this ring with a stone set in it upon the Emperor’s hand? It is one of the properties of that stone to enable thee to remember that thou seest here to-night, and hadst thou not seen the stone, thou wouldst never have been able to remember aught thereof.” This refers to a dream or vision accorded to Rhonabwy while he lay upon an enchanted calf-skin.[507] Dactylomancy, as it was called, was resorted to in the Middle Ages by those who sought to probe the mysteries of the future. This art was practiced by the use of a ring (sometimes bearing the figure of one of the constellations), which was suspended by a thread in the middle of a glass or metal vessel. The number and quality of the strokes it made against the sides of the vessel as it swung free on the thread, were interpreted by the magician according to a secret formula, and were explained by him to signify that some expected or dreaded event would or would not take place.[508]