Just here it may be well to emphasize the fact, that, from time
immemorial, and the world over, the armlet, the bracelet, and the
ring, have been counted the symbols of a boundless bond between
giver and receiver; the tokens of a mutual, unending covenant.
Possibly,--probably, as I think,--this is in consequence of
the primitive custom of binding, as an amulet, the enclosed
record--enclosed in the “house of the amulet”[125]--of the covenant
of blood on the arm of either participant in that rite; possibly,
again, it is an outgrowth of the common root idea of a covenant and a
bracelet, as a binding agency.
Blood-covenanting and bracelet-binding seem--as already shown--to be
intertwined in the _languages_ of the Oriental progenitors of the race.
There are, likewise, indications of this intertwining in the _customs_
of peoples, East and West. For example, in India, where blood-shedding
is peculiarly objectionable, the gift and acceptance of a bracelet is
an ancient covenant-tie, seemingly akin to blood-brotherhood. Of this
custom, an Indian authority says: “Amongst the rajput races of India
the women adopt a brother by the gift of a bracelet. The intrinsic
value of such pledges is never looked to, nor is it necessary that
it should be costly, though it varies with the means and rank of the
donor, and may be of flock silk and spangles, or of gold chains and
gems. The acceptance of the pledge is by the ‘_katchli_’, or corset,
of simple silk or satin, or gold brocade and pearls. Colonel Tod was
the _Rakhi-bund Bhai_ [the Bracelet-bound Brother] of the three queens
of Oodipur, Bundi, and Kotch; as also of Chund-Bai, the maiden sister
of the Rana, and of many ladies of the chieftains of rank. Though the
bracelet may be sent by maidens, it is only on occasions of urgent
necessity and danger. The adopted brother may hazard his life in his
adopted sister’s cause, and yet never receive a mite in reward; for he
cannot even see the fair object; who, as brother of her adoption, has
constituted him her defender.”[126]
“The ... ‘Bracelet-bound Brother,’ feels himself called upon to
espouse the cause of the lady from whom he has received the gift, and
to defend her against all her enemies, whenever she shall demand his
assistance.” Thus, the Great Mogul, Hoomâyoon, father of the yet more
celebrated Akbar, was in his early life bound, and afterwards loyally
recognized his binding, as “the sworn knight of one of the princesses
of Rajasthan, who, according to the custom of her country, secured
the sword of the prince in her service by the gift of a bracelet.”
When he had a throne of his own to care for, this princess, Kurnivati,
being besieged at Cheetore, sent to Hoomâyoon, then prosecuting a
vigorous campaign in Bengal; and he, as in duty bound, “instantly
obeyed the summons”; and although he was not in season to rescue her,
he “evinced his fidelity by avenging the fall of the city.”[127] It
is noteworthy, just here, that the Oriental biographer of the Mogul
Akbar calls attention to the fact, that while the Persians describe
close friendship as chiefly subsisting between men, “in Hindostan it is
celebrated between man and woman”;[128] as indeed, it is among the Arab
tribes East of the Jordan.[129]
In the Norseland, an oath of fidelity was taken on a ring, or a
bracelet, kept in the temple of the gods; and the gift and acceptance
of a bracelet, or a ring, was a common symbol of a covenant of
fidelity. Thus, in “Hávamál,” the high song of Odin, we find:
“Odin, I believe,
A ring-oath gave.
Who, in his faith will trust?”
And in “Viga Glum’s Saga,” it is related: “In the midst of a wedding
party, Glum calls upon Thorarin, his accuser, to hear his oath, and
taking in his hand a silver ring which had been dipped in sacrificial
blood, he cites two witnesses to testify to his oath on the ring, and
to his having appealed to the gods in his denial of the charge made
against him.” In the “Saga of Fridthjof the Bold,” when Fridthjof is
bidding farewell to his beloved Ingeborg, he covenants fidelity to her
by the gift of
“An _arm-ring_, all over famous;
Forged by the halting Volund, ’twas,--the old North-story’s
Vulcan ...
Heaven was grav’d thereupon, with the twelve immortals’ strong
castles--
Signs of the changing months, but the skald had Sun-houses named
them.”
As Fridthjof gave this pledge to Ingeborg, he said:
“Forget me never; and,
In sweet remembrance of our youthful love,
This arm-ring take; a fair Volunder-work,
With all heaven’s wonders carved i’ th’ shining gold.
Ah! the best wonder is a faithful heart ...
How prettily becomes it thy white arm--
A glow-worm twining round a lily stem.”
And the subsequent story of that covenanting arm-ring, fills thrilling
pages in Norseland lore.[130]
Yet again, in the German cycle of the “Nibelungen Lied,” Gotelind, the
wife of Sir Rudeger, gives bracelets to the warrior-bard Folker, to
bind him as her knightly champion in the court of King Etzel, to which
he goes. Her jewel casket is brought to her.
“From this she took twelve bracelets, and drew them o’er his hand;
‘These you must take, and with you bear hence to Etzel’s land,
And for the sake of Gotelind the same at court must wear,
That I may learn, when hither again you all repair,
What service you have done me in yon assembly bright.’
The lady’s wish thereafter full well perform’d the knight.”
And when the fight waxed sore at the court of Etzel, the daring
and dying Folker called on Sir Rudeger, to bear witness to his
bracelet-bound fidelity:
“For me, most noble margrave! you must a message bear;
These bracelets red were given me late by your lady fair,
To wear at this high festal before the royal Hun.
View them thyself, and tell her that I’ve her bidding done.”[131]
It would, indeed, seem, that from this root-idea of the binding force
of an endless covenant, symbolized in the form, and in the primitive
name, of the bracelet, the armlet, the ring,--there has come down to
us the use of the wedding-ring, or the wedding-bracelet, and of the
signet-ring as the seal of the most sacred covenants. The signet-ring
appears in earliest history. When Pharaoh would exalt Joseph over all
the land of Egypt, “Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand, and put
it upon Joseph’s hand.”[132] Similarly with Ahasuerus and Haman: “The
king took his ring from his hand, and gave it unto Haman;” and the
irrevocable decrees when written were “sealed with the king’s ring.”
When again Haman was deposed and Mordecai was exalted, “the king
took off his ring, which he had taken from Haman, and gave it unto
Mordecai.”[133] The re-instatement of the prodigal son, in the parable,
was by putting “a ring on his hand.”[134] And these illustrations out
of ancient Egypt, Persia, and Syria, indicate a world-wide custom, so
far. One’s signet-ring stood for his very self, and represented, thus,
his blood, as his life.
The use of rings, or bracelets, or armlets, in the covenant of
betrothal, or of marriage, is from of old, and it is of wide-spread
acceptance.[135] References to it are cited from Pliny, Tertullian,
Juvenal, Isidore; and traces of it are found, earlier or later, among
the peoples of Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Islands of the Sea. In
Iceland, the covenanting-ring was large enough for the palm of the hand
to be passed through; so, in betrothal “the bridegroom passed four
fingers and his palm through one of these rings, and in this manner he
received the hand of the bride.” In Ireland, long ago, “a usual gift
from a woman to her betrothed husband was a pair of bracelets made of
her own hair”; as if a portion of her very self--as in the case of
one’s blood--entered into the covenant rite. Again in Ireland, as also
among the old Romans, the wedding-ring was in the form of two hands
clasped (called a “_fede_”) in token of union and fidelity.
Sometimes, in England, the wedding-ring was worn upon the thumb, as
extant portraits illustrate; and as suggested in Butler’s Hudibras:
“Others were for abolishing
That tool of matrimony, a ring,
With which the unsanctify’d bridegroom
Is marry’d only to a thumb.”
In Southern’s “Maid’s Last Prayer,” the heroine says: “Marry him
I must, and wear my wedding-ring upon my thumb too, that I’m
resolved.”[136] These thumb-weddings were said to be introduced from
the East[137]; and Chardin reports a form of marriage in Ceylon, by the
binding together of the thumbs of the contracting parties;[138] as,
according to the classics, the thumbs were bound together in the rite
of blood-covenanting.[139] Indeed, the selection of the ring-finger
for the wedding-covenant has commonly been attributed to the relation
of that finger to the heart as the blood-centre, and as the seat of
life. “Aulus Gellius tells us, that Appianus asserts, in his Egyptian
books, that a very delicate nerve runs from the fourth finger of the
left hand to the heart, on which account this finger is used for the
marriage-ring.” Macrobius says that in Roman espousals the woman put
the covenant ring “on the third finger of her left hand [not counting
the thumb], because it was believed that a nerve ran from that finger
to the heart.” And as to the significance of this point, it has been
said: “The _fact_ [of the nerve connection with the heart] has nothing
to do with the question: that the ancients _believed_ it, is all we
require to know.”[140]
Among the Copts of Egypt, both the blood and the ring have their part
in the covenant of marriage. Two rings are employed, one for the bride
and one for the bridegroom. At the door of the bridegroom’s house, as
the bride approaches it, a lamb or a sheep is slaughtered; and the
bride must have a care to step over the covenanting-blood as she enters
the door, to join the bridegroom. It is after this ceremony, that the
two contracting parties exchange the rings, which are as the tokens
of the covenant of blood.[141] In Borneo, among the Tring Dayaks,
the marriage ceremony includes the smearing with a bloody sword, the
clasped hands of the bride and groom, in conjunction with an invoking
of the protecting spirits.[142] In this case, the wedding-ring would
seem to be a bond of blood.
Again, in Little Russia, the bride gives to the bridegroom a
covenanting draught in “a cup of wine, in which a ring has been
put”;[143] as if in that case the wine and the blood-bond of the
covenant were commingled in a true _assiratum_.[144] That this latter
custom is an ancient one, would seem to be indicated by the indirect
reference to it in Sir Walter Scott’s ballad of “The Noble Moringer,” a
mediæval lay; where the long absent knight returns from the Holy Land,
just in time to be at the wedding-feast of his enticed wife. He appears
unrecognized at the feast, as a poor palmer. A cup of wine is sent to
him by the bride.
“It was the noble Moringer that dropped amid the wine
A bridal ring of burning gold so costly and so fine:
Now listen, gentles, to my song, it tells you but the sooth,
’Twas with that very ring of gold he pledged his bridal truth.”
Clearly this was not the ring he gave at his bridal, but the one which
he accepted, in the covenanting-cup, from his bride. The cup was
carried back from the palmer to the bride, for her drinking.
“The ring hath caught the Lady’s eye; she views it close and near;
Then might you hear her shriek aloud, ‘The Moringer is here!’
Then might you see her start from seat, while tears in torrents
fell;
But whether ’twas from joy or woe, the ladies best can tell.”
To the present day, an important ceremony at the coronation of a
sovereign of Great Britain, is the investiture of the sovereign _per
annulum_, or “by the ring.” The ring is placed on the fourth finger of
the sovereign’s right hand, by the Archbishop of Canterbury; and it is
called “The Wedding Ring of England,” as it symbolizes the covenant
union of the sovereign and his people. A similar practice prevails at
the coronation of European sovereigns generally. It also runs back to
the days of the early Roman emperors, and of Alexander the Great.[145]
That a ring, or a circlet, worn around a thumb, or a finger, or an
arm, in token of an endless covenant between its giver and receiver,
has been looked upon, in all ages, as the symbol of an inter-union
of the lives thereby brought together, is unmistakable; whether the
covenanting life-blood be drawn for such inter-commingling, directly
from the member so encircled, or not. The very covenant itself, or its
binding force, has been sometimes thought to depend on the circlet
representing it; as if the life which was pledged passed into the token
of its pledging. Thus Lord Bacon says: “It is supposed [to be] a help
to the continuance of love, to wear a ring or bracelet of the person
beloved;”[146] and he suggests that “a trial should be made by two
persons, of the effect of compact and agreement; that a ring should
be put on for each other’s sake, to try whether, if one should break
his promise the other would have any feeling of it in his absence.”
In other words, that the test should be made, to see whether the
inter-union of lives symbolized by the covenant-token be a reality.
On this idea it is, that many persons are unwilling to remove the
wedding-ring from the finger, while the compact holds.[147]
It is not improbable, indeed, that the armlets, or bracelets, which
were found on the arms of Oriental kings, and of Oriental divinities
as well, were intended to indicate, or to symbolize, the personal
inter-union claimed to exist between those kings and divinities. Thus
an armlet, worn by Thotmes III., is preserved in the museum at Leyden.
It bears the cartouche of the King, having on it his sacred name, with
its reference to his inter-union with his god. It was much the same in
Nineveh.[148] Lane says, that upon the seal ring commonly worn by the
modern Egyptian “is engraved the wearer’s name,” and that this name
“is usually accompanied by the words ‘His servant’ (signifying ‘the
servant, or worshiper of God’), and often by other words expressive of
the person’s trust in God.”[149]
As the token of the blood-covenant is sometimes fastened about the
_arm_, and sometimes about the _neck_; so the encircling necklace, as
well as the encircling armlet, is sometimes counted the symbol of a
covenant of very life. This is peculiarly the case in India; where the
bracelet-brotherhood has been shown to be an apparent equivalent of
the blood-brotherhood. Among the folk-lore stories of India, it is a
common thing to hear of a necklace which holds the soul of the wearer.
That necklace removed, the wearer dies. That necklace restored, the
wearer lives again. “Sodewa Bai was born with a golden necklace about
her neck, concerning which also her parents consulted astrologers, who
said, ‘This is no common child; the necklace of gold about her neck
contains your daughter’s soul; let it therefore be guarded with the
utmost care; for if it were taken off, and worn by another person, she
would die.’” On that necklace of life, the story hangs. The necklace
was stolen by a servant, and Sodewa Bai died. Being placed in a
canopied tomb, she revived, night by night, when the servant laid off
the stolen necklace which contained the soul of Sodewa Bai. The loss
was at last discovered by her husband; the necklace was restored to
her, and she lived again.[150] And this is but one story of many.
In the Brahman marriage ceremony the bridegroom receives his bride by
binding a covenanting necklace about her neck. “A small ornament of
gold, called _tahly_, which is the sign of their being actually in the
state of marriage, ... is fastened by a short string dyed yellow with
_saffron_.”[151] And a Sanskrit word for “saffron” is also a word for
“blood.”[152]
The importance of this symbolism of the token of the blood-covenant,
in its bearing on the root-idea of an inter-union of natures by an
inter-commingling of blood, will be more clearly shown, by and by.