Note 913 — Chapter VI · OLD ENGLISH WIFE-PURCHASE YIELDS TO FREE MARRIAGE
Reading edition
The proof consists in the interpretation of the supposed symbolism. Thus the German lover, in early times, placed upon the bride's finger a ring made of a twig plucked from a tree upon his own land, the bride thus being "symbolically bound to the new locality": Unger, Die Ehe, 106. The thread or band is interpreted as the bond of the captive; and Kulischer gives the following illustration from northern custom:
"Komm, komm Maria lieb, und reich mir deine Hand, Hier hast du das Ringelein und um den Arm das Band,"
runs a Swedish rhyme. In an Upland dance, the maiden sings:
"Und willst mich schliessen an's Herz dein, Sollst mir zuvor geben ein Ringelein."
To which the young man replies:
"Hier hast du Ring und Verlobungsband, Du sollst mich nicht betrügen."
Sometimes these symbols are brought into connection with the sword—also, it is assumed, a survival of violence. Thus in an Anglo-Saxon picture of the eighth century the bridegroom reaches to the bride the ring upon a sword or staff: Kulischer, 209; cf. Weinhold, Deutsche Frauen, I, 241, 242.