“The future of civilization rests in the fate of the One Ring, which has been lost for centuries. Powerful forces are unrelenting in their search for it,” is the opening line of the blurb for J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic adventure story The Lord of the Rings, that was written between 1937 and 1949. Considered one of the best-selling books ever written with over 150 million copies sold, this standalone work of high-fantasy follows the journey of a young Hobbit named Frodo Baggins who inherits a magic ring. As the ‘Ringbearer,’ the hero is tasked with destroying the so-called ‘One Ring‘ by returning it to the hellish fires of Mount Doom where it was forged by the evil wizard Sauron.
The One Ring was forged in gold and it was completely resistant to any kind of damage, including dragon fire, and it could only be destroyed it in volcanic magma at Sauron’s Mount Doom where it had been created. (Peter J. Yost / CC BY-SA 4.0)
It is widely known that Tolkien drew on a wide array of influences including archaeology, Norse mythology, Christianity and Germanic heroic legends like Beowulf. These legends and myths are all replete with tales of magic finger rings imbued with supernatural powers, but most often they endow wearers with invisibility and immortality. Other magic rings granted wishes and cast spells, and while most often rings were associated with positive powers, some of the more interesting are the cursed rings of folklore, like the ‘One Ring’ from The Lord of the Rings. In an effort to understand the ancient origins of mythical magic rings, one must journey back in time to the magic schools of classical antiquity and the building of the legendary King Solomon’s Temple.
Gyges the shepherd discovers the magic ring with which he murdered the King and seduced his Queen by anonymous artist.(Public Domain)
The Ring Of Gyges
Plato founded the Platonist school of thought and ‘The Academy’, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. In his second book Republic, written around 375 BC, Plato’s brother tells the story of The Ring of Gyges which offered its wearers the power of invisibility - just like Tolkien’s One Ring. This tale recounts the legend of a shepherd called Gyges in the employ of the king of Lydia, who found a magic ring in a cave one day. Gyges discovered he became invisible when he turned the ring one way on his finger, and that he reappeared when he turned the ring the other way. Gyges used the magic ring to alter his fate, so that he became one of the king’s messengers. Twisting the ring back and forth the shepherd went on to seduce the queen, to kill the king and to rule the kingdom.
Essentially, within myths, invisibility is symbolic of escaping detection and the tale of the magic ring of Gyges opens the question: why should a person bother to do the right thing if one can get away with doing wrong? It is a deeply moral question that Plato addressed in Republic.
The temple of Solomon at Jerusalem. (Wellcome Images/ CC BY-SA 4.0)
The Ring Of Solomon
In both Medieval Arabic and Hebraic demonology, the story of the Ring of Solomon maintained that the great king had used a magic ring to attain universal knowledge, to speak with animals and to control and seal genies and djinn (demons) in bottles. The legend of the Seal of Solomon, that was marked on the ring, varies from place to place, but most versions tell of a magic ring being crafted by God in heaven from brass and iron, which was engraved with written commands for both good and evil spirits. According to Raphael Patai's Encyclopaedia of Jewish Folklore and Traditions in one legend the demon prince Asmodeus gained possession of the magic ring and with it “he ruled in Solomon's stead for 40 days.” In another version of this story written by the Greek Herodotus, the demon threw the ring into the sea where it was swallowed by a fish that was later caught and served to King Solomon, who recovered the ring. This story can be called the mythological birthing moment of the ‘fish and ring’ and ‘returning ring’ archetypes in mythology.
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During the magical revival of the Renaissance era the seal on Solomon's ring became a central motif in magic and alchemy. Depicted variously as a pentagram or hexagram, magical traditions maintain that when Solomon was building his Temple one of his master masons was being tormented by demons. The king was able to understand and control the demons with the ring, eventually commanding them to build his Temple, before he trapped them inside bottles and buried them forever. These ancient demonic stories are why the symbol of Solomon’s Seal became such a popular Medieval and Renaissance era magical talisman, and the Biblical King Solomon was himself adopted as an iconic theme of occultism. In Medieval magic the Seal of Solomon was one of the most popular sigils, which are geometric designs that served as magical tools representing different demons and deities, which are controlled and directed by practitioners to achieve desired outcomes.
Magical circles and seals of Solomon (19th century) (Wellcome Images / CC BY-SA 4.0)
The story of Solomon’s magic ring being cast into a river and later returning in a fish-belly would survive the sands of time as it was firmly lodged in the cores of many stories and legends. For example, another retuning ring featured centrally in the Persian folktale Arabian Nights when the fisherman Judar bin Omar found the ring of the enchanter Al-Shamardal inside a fish. From these early Middle Eastern mythological origins, stories of discarded magical rings reappearing inside fish would infiltrate myths, stories and legends all over the world, including in some highly-unexpected places, like for example in Glasgow, Scotland.
St Kentigern, better known as Mungo. Founder and patron saint of Glasgow. (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Saint Mungo’s Ring
One of the earliest mythological accounts of a ‘returning ring’ was told by Herodotus in the Greek tale of Polycrates, whom history records as the Tyrant of Samos, who ruled the western Turkish island from 540 BC 522 BC. While making a peace treaty with the king of Egypt, Polycrates accidentally threw away his old emerald ring, but a fisherman later caught and gutted the fish, and reproduced it. The ancient stories of Solomon’s ring and Polycrates’ ring both tell of rings that were deliberately lost in water and not expected to be found again, but that were later discovered inside caught fish.
It is not known when exactly this archetype of mythology first emerged in the repertoire of the bards of Celtic cultures, but this very same mythological format is found in Scotland in the founding of the University of Glasgow. The University website displays the official city of Glasgow coat of arms which features four distinct symbols: a tree, a bird, a bell and a fish, which were all derived from legends associated with the sixth-century Saint Mungo (Kentigern). Mungo was the patron saint of Glasgow who founded the first monastery in the city, which is now the magnificent Glasgow Cathedral, and the four symbols all pertain to Saint Mungo’s relationship with the city. These four motifs of mythology are perhaps best remembered in the following short poem which is taught to every Glaswegian school child:
There’s the tree that never grew,
There’s the bird that never flew,
There’s the bell that never rang,
There’s the fish that never swam
Early version of Glasgow's Coat of Arms from 1866 showing the tree, the bird, the bell and the fish. (Public Domain)
According to the University of Glasgow website, the bird is a wild robin which represents Saint Mungo's old spiritual mentor, Saint Serf. Medieval Scottish legends relates Saint Mungo held a dead robin in his hands and restored it to life with prayers, representing Mungo continuing (keeping alive) the religious traditions of the earlier Saint Serf. In the oldest versions of this crest, the tree was originally a Hazel branch, referring to a tale about Mungo falling asleep while tending to a holy fire in a church refectory. A group of boys who were jealous of Mungo’s intelligence put the fire out while he slept, but magical Mungo prayed and caused frozen Hazel branches to burst into flames and relight the fire. The bell represents a legendary bell that was given to Mungo by the Pope, and in the 15th century the so-called ‘St Mungo's Bell’ had become a central religious institution in Glasgow. A replacement bell was commissioned by Glasgow city magistrates in 1641 AD and is currently kept in the People's Palace, in Glasgow.
Stained glass in the University of Glasgow illustrating the legendary Saint Mungo. (
Vysotsky / CC BY-SA 4.0)
The ring depicted on the Glasgow city crest is lodged in the mouth of a salmon, exactly as it was described in the ancient legend of King Solomon, the Arabian Nights and in the Greek tale of Polycrates. This Scottish ring, however, was a gift from Hydderch Hael, King of Cadzow, to his Queen, Languoreth. The Electric Scotland website relates King Roderick (Hydderch Hael) gave to his consort, Queen Langneth, “a very precious and peculiar ring” that she innocently gave to a trusted courtier for safekeeping. One day, after a royal hunt in the forest of Clydesdale, the king came upon the thief having a nap and wearing the royal ring on his finger. The king contained his jealous rage and slowly slipped the ring off the courtier’s finger, and hurled it into the river. The king demanded his queen show him the engagement ring, “on pain of death should she fail to produce it.” The queen appealed to the courtier to return the ring, but he was totally bamboozled as to how he had lost it. The desperate queen petitioned Saint Mungo for assistance and he instructed a fishermen to cast a fishing line into the river and to deliver to him the first fish that was caught. That night, Mungo produced the ring from the mouth of the fish, and this legend is the origin of “the fish that never swam” in the symbolic Glaswegian poem.
A Queen takes a magic ring from a fish's mouth. Scheveningen, Netherlands. (Public Domain)
Recurring Returning Ring Motifs
An Irish version of the ‘returning ring’ archetype was written in the 12th-century Tain Bo Fraich where which Ailill gives his daughter Findabair a magic ring, which she then passes on to her lover Fraech. Ailill discovers the ring among Fraech's belongings and throws it into the river where, just as in Glasgow, Israel and Greece, it was swallowed by a salmon, which is later caught by a servant, who reproduces the ring.
With origins in the mythologies of the ancient Levant and Greece, the ‘returning ring’ is found not only in Celtic and Norse mythology, but also in ancient India. In the Sanskrit drama, ?akuntal?, written by K?lid?sa, an ancient king fell in love with ?akuntal?, to whom he gave an emerald ring engraved with his name, which he later found a fisherman selling at a market after finding it in the belly of a fish.
Götterdämmerung tells the Rhinemaidens: "If you threaten my life, hardly you'll win from my hand the ring" in Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen (Public Domain)
Symbolism Of The Magic Ring
What symbolism underwrites archetype of the magic ring? Returning to J.R.R. Tolkien's adventure stories, the ‘One Ring‘, also called the ‘Ruling Ring’ and ‘Isildur's Bane’, first appeared in The Hobbit (1937) as a magic ring that granted its wearers invisibility. It later became a central motif in The Lord of the Rings (1954–55), but it changed in nature and became a dark-malevolent ‘Ring of Power’ which Frodo Baggins's quested to destroy in the same flames where it was forged. In the first of the trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring, the wizard Gandalf explain to the hero hobbit Frodo Baggins, “a Ring of Power looks after itself.” The sorcerer continues, “it [the ring] may slip off treacherously, but its keeper never abandons it,”- a sentence which holds the esoteric key to a greater understanding the returning ring archetype of mythology.
Fellowship Of The Ring ( jennethd1/ CC0)
Sir James George Frazer (1854 – 1941) was a Scottish social anthropologist and folklorist who published The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion, (1890), a seminal comparative study of mythology and magic. Frazer analysed common elements within religious beliefs and substantiated these practices on scientific principles. His overriding thesis was that the most ancient religions were “fertility cults that revolved around the worship and periodic sacrifice of a sacred king,” and that from the associated magical processes, through religious belief, modern scientific thought was born. Frazer suggests rings served, “in the primitive mind, as devices to prevent the soul from leaving the body and to prevent demons from gaining entry.” He states, “a magic ring, therefore, might confer immortality by preventing the soul's departure and thwart the penetration of any harmful magic that might be directed against the wearer.” Frazer concluded that magic rings were central in the psyche of ancient Greeks as an ancient Greek maxim, attributed to the philosopher and mystic Pythagoras, forbade people to wear any rings, for fear that they held magic powers.
The name of Frazer’s book, The Golden Bough was the name given to one of the episodic tales written in the epic Aeneid, book VI, by the Roman poet Virgil (70–19 BC), telling of the adventures of the Trojan hero Aeneas after fighting in the Trojan War. Illustration from “The golden bough" by Wenceslaus Hollar (17th century) (Public Domain)
A most vital element in the legends and beliefs of magic rings is ‘the hero,’ for without a hero, even the most powerful rings are lifeless. Magic rings were almost always associated with heroes. The hero, as a concept, is perhaps the oldest archetypal device within world mythology, a statement supported in The Epic of Gilgamesh, recounting the tale of a hero-king from of Sumerian Uruk (modern day Iraq). This poem was written around 2700 BC in Sumerian cuneiform, and it represents the oldest written story known to exist. Since Gilgamesh, a wide range of iconic heroes have set off on quests and in Joseph Campbell’s 2008 book, A Hero with a Thousand Faces the author describes a hero as “often having a magical aid in the shape of a weapon, token or a guide.” Thus, the ring is perhaps the oldest and most reoccurring of all magical devices, but what about their habit of ‘returning’ to their rightful owners?
In narratology and comparative mythology the “hero's journey" involves heroes going on adventures, being victorious in a decisive crisis, and returning home. (Public Domain)
Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring tells of a team of heroes who together undertake a perilous journey to destroy the evil ring. The ring itself is the pulsing heart of the trilogy, and having been created by the evil Sauron, on one level it represents the seductive evil powers that lurk even in even the most pure-hearted of beings in Middle Earth, a theme retold in all of the ancient myths about princesses giving away and losing magic engagement rings. However, these ‘returning rings’, and stories of rings being taken on circular journeys, are motifs of loyalty, trust and companionship enduring through time. With no beginning and no end, circles are symbolic never-ending wheels, and it is for this reason the rings of mythology represent immortality, which in itself is an allusion to the mysteries of infinity and all that is eternal. The ring returning to heroes, no matter how far they stray from the path of truth, reminds that one cannot escape destiny, for every act a person commits in life wheels back around. It is summarized in the simple sentence, “what’s for you won’t go by you,” even if one casts it away in a river.
Ashley Cowie is a Scottish historian, author and documentary filmmaker presenting original perspectives on historical problems, in accessible and exciting ways. His books, articles and television shows explore lost cultures and kingdoms, ancient crafts and artifacts, symbols and architecture, myths and legends telling thought-provoking stories which together offer insights into our shared social history. www.ashleycowie.com.
Top Image: Ring of Silvianus ( CC BY 2.0 ) and artist's impression of Gollum ( CC BY-SA 4.0 )
By Ashley Cowie
References
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