Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/287

 a?id Sentiments. 267 a fecret interview in her tent. So, in the romance of " Horn," the lady Rigmel gave her lover, Horn, a ring as a tolvcn. It was often, moreover, given not merely as a token of remembrance, but as a means of recog- nition. In the well-known early Engliili romance of " Sir Triftram," the mother of the hero, dying in childbirth of him after his father had No. 192. The Token of tk been llain, gives a ring to the knight to whofe care Ihe entrufted the infant, as a token by which his parentage lliould be known when he grew up : — A ring of r'lche heive Than hadde that le-vedi (lady)y>f ; Sche take (gave) it Rouhand trcivi', Hir fine fche bad it be ; Mi brother ivele it knezvc, Mi fader yaf it me. This ring leads fubfequently to the recognition of Triftram by his uncle, king Mark. In the romance of "Ipomydon" (Weber's "Metrical Romances," vol. ii. p. 3<,^), the hero fimilarly receives from his mother a ring, which was to be a token of recognition to his illegitimate brother. So, in the romance, Horn makes himfelf known in the fequel to Rigmel, by dropping the ring llie had given him into the drinking-horn which Ihe was ferving round at a feaft. Rings were often given to meifengers as credentials, or were ufed for the lame purpofe as letters of introdudion. In the romance of " Floire and Blancetlor" (p. 55), the young hero, on his