In
some parts of Ireland the belief in the special virtue of a gold
wedding ring is so strong that when the bridegroom is too poor to buy
one he will hire it for the occasion, and it is reported that a
shopkeeper of Munster realized quite a little sum annually by renting
rings for weddings, to be brought back to him after the ceremony.
Strange to say, there is said to have been a superstitious fancy in
Yorkshire, England, that to wed with a borrowed ring would bring good
luck.56
A
Scottish tradition in regard to a ring used at a wedding is imbued with
the gloomy superstition so characteristic of Scotland. The heir of a
noble family was about to be married to a Dutch lady of rank, but when
the wedding-day came was so apathetic, or so preoccupied, that he
forgot the hour of the ceremony, and had to be hurried from his
breakfast to the church. In his haste he had forgotten all about the
wedding-ring, and was obliged to use a ring offered to him by a
bystander when the ceremony reached the point where one had to be put
on the bride's finger. What was her terror, however, when she saw that
it was a mourning-ring that had been placed upon her hand, one bearing
the sinister design of a skull and cross-bones. This she felt to be an
omen that death would soon overtake her, and she brooded so much over
the happening that she sank into a decline, and died before a year had
passed. The effect of the mind upon the body is so great, especially
in highly nervous organisms, that such a tragic result of a mere piece
of carelessness is far from being impossible.
In modern times betrothal rings are often of the type called " regard rings," where the letters of a word
56 William Tegg, " The Knot Tied : Marriage Ceremonies of All Nations," London, 1877, p. 314.
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