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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 June 2012
The Runic Inscription on your Lordship's very curious Gold Ring, which I have copied at the head of my letter, is composed with a mysterious abruptness, and arranged with a studied obscurity, well befitting its high thaumaturgical pretensions, as an amulet against fever and leprosy.
page 27 note a In Drake's “Eboracum, or the History and Antiquities of the City of York,” published A. D. 1736, figure xxvi. on a miscellaneous plate at p. 101. is thus described in the Appendix, p. cii. “An inscription round the outer verge of a large and massy gold ring. This ring was found about two years ago on Bramham-moor, or near it; but where I cannot justly learn, for fear of a resumption by way of treasor-trove. It is quite plain with square edges; the letters are cut, raised, and the interstices filled up with lead, or a kind of enamel, which make it smooth and even. The inscription is certainly Runic, but to all the connoisseurs in those old and obsolete characters, who have seen it hitherto, unintelligible. The Reverend Mr. Serenius, a Swedish minister, and well skilled in the northern languages, took great pains to come at an explanation of this mystick ring, but in vain; being not able to make out any thing more than one word of the inscription, which he reads GLASTA—PONTO. This makes the learned divine conjecture, that it had some reference to the abbey of Glastenbury; and might have been the wedding ring of some abbot to that monastery; or, on his translation from thence, to the church of York. Upon looking backward into the account of our prelates, I can find none of them that came from Glastenbury; nor upon search into our catalogue of abbots there, can I find any of them who were Danes, or sent as missionaries into Norway. No doubt, but this ring must have been transported hither by some Dane or Norwegian; the characters it bears giving proof of the now, almost, lost language of those antient northern nations. This is all the interpretation I can learn, or all the conjecture I can make relating to this very antient curiosity; which is, at present, in the hands of Mr. T. Gill of York, who just preserved it from the crucible, and weighs, within a trifle, five guineas, or one ounce six penny-weights.”
page 28 note b Hist. Nat. lib. i. c. 7.
page 28 note c 4to Antv. 1657, p. 61. Abundant information respecting rings may also be found in Licetus de Annulis, 4to. Utlini, 1645, and Kirchman de Annulis, 12mo. Slesv. 1657.
page 29 note d Whiston's Josephus, book viii. chap. 2.
page 29 note e Hoare's Classical Tour, p. 171.
page 29 note f Described in Archæologia, vol. xviii. p. 306, and the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. lxxiii. p. 497, by my excellent friend Mr. Sharp, with an engraving in the last named publication.
page 29 note g Marcellus Empiricus, cap. xxix. cited by Kirchman, p. 245.