Wedding Ring Superstitions August 4, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary, Modern , trackback
Everything to do with weddings attracts superstitions and rings are no exception: as the most visible material sign of the bond between man and wife it is only natural that they were included in rituals. The following folklore (all we have in our files) comes from Britain and Ireland, all but one are from nineteenth-century sources. And if you are unsure about the differences between a wedding ring and an engagement ring, make sure you read this article as Beach did. Beach would be over the moon to add the customs of other countries and continents: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
1) A non-gold ring will bring strife [Dund Eve Tel 15 Feb 1899]
2) South-West of England: A hair is taken from a maiden’s head and passed through a wedding-ring. The ends are then held by the girl with her first finger and thumb, and the ring suspended a little way from the top of a half-filled tumbler of water. The hand is held perfectly still, but the ring is presently seen to oscillate to such an extent that it chinks against the side of the tumbler. The number of chinks is said to correspond with the number of years which will elapse before the girl is married. [Today it would be how many years until she is divorced, Hants Tel 22 Apr 1893, note in some other sources the girl is told to carry out the ritual on midsummer’s day at midday]
3) A wedding ring should be turned around three times if you want your wish to come true [22, Signs Omens and Superstitions].
4) Slices of cake passed thru the bride’s wedding ring [love this] and eaten by the bridesmaids, will bring a husband within a year [13, Signs Omens and Superstitions, very small slices?].
5) For sore eyes, a plain gold wedding ring is considered a sovereign remedy to this day. [19 and 21 for styes, Signs Omens and Superstitions]
6) In Edward Jorden’s The Suffocation of the Mother, 24 (early seventeenth century) there is a glancing reference to ‘pissing through the wedding ring’ [textual quotation] for anxiety cures.
7) Never try the wedding ring on before the ceremony [!, The Star 8 Jul 1897]
8) A wedding ring that has been worn to a thin thread is lucky and brings luck to the wearer’s children. [21, Signs Omens and Superstitions]
9) The groom must not drop the ring in the ceremony [The Star 8 Jul 1897, incredibly Mr and Mrs Beachcombing put the wrong ring on each other’s fingers in theirs, but they did not drop the ring…]
10) ‘[I]n Ireland a ring being rubbed on a wart or a sore is thought to cure it’ [Hants Tel 22 Apr 1893]
11) ‘[I]n Somersetshire a stye on the eyelid is said to be removed in the name way.’ [Hants Tel 22 Apr 1893]
12) ‘In some parts of Ireland a belief still exists that if the wart he pricked through a wedding-ring by a thorn from a gooseberry bush it will gradually die away. Even stroking the ring across a wound is supposed to be of use in effecting a cure.’ [Hants Tel 22 Apr 1893]
13) In Northumberland, the young girls prepare for the May feast of the Alay syllabub, made of warm milk from the cow, sweet cake and wine. Into this a wedding ring is dropped, for which the girls fish with a ladle. Whoever gets it will be married first. [1541 Encyclopedia of Superstitions]
14) ‘Another widespread belief is that if a wife loses her wedding-ring she will also lose her husband’s affection, and if she should have the misfortune to break it, her husband will shortly after die.’ [Hants Tel 22 Apr 1893, There is a terrible news story from 1899 of a woman in London committing suicide after losing her wedding ring]
15) ‘Many married women will not take off their ring under any consideration, because the removal would portend the death of the husband’ [Hants Tel 22 Apr 1893].
16) A rhyme: ‘As your wedding ring wears/ Your cares will wear away’ [Brand 105, perhaps my favourite].
