A Tale of Rings

A Silversmith's Perspective on Mythical and Fairy-tale Rings

"I always forgot," said she, "to show you a ring that this young shepherdess put into my hands with an air of uncommon dignity, begging me to accept it, and to give her in exchange for it some dresses like those they wear in this country." 

"Is the stone a fine one?" inquired the King. 

"I have scarcely looked at it," added the Queen, "but here it is."

- 'Princess Carpillon,' Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy

It's the beginning of 2026. Prices for gold have hit record highs and silver has tripled in price in the last year. For silversmiths, like myself, and goldsmiths, this has meant locating, re-melting, and prudently utilising every last metal scrap in their craft. Even turning to copper, a Reuters' headline announces, "AI to boost copper demand 50% by 2040, but more mines needed to ensure supply, S&P says" (Jan 8, 2026). Robert Friedland, a mining billionaire, indicates that more copper will need to be mined than has been mined in the last 10,000 years. As investors, AI, and other industries absorb more and more of our limited metal resources, will anything be left for jewellery? Will gold, silver, and even copper jewellery be beyond the means of all but the most wealthy? With only the most elite artisans able to work as goldsmiths? Will all that precious metal simply be a component of our digital existence and the energy-production that fuels it?

While it may seem that the problems of little smiths don't amount to a hill of silver dust, jewellery is important. Tiaras to bishops' rings, wedding rings to charm bracelets, jewellery has likely been with us as long as clothing - perhaps even longer. From our beginnings with shell, stone, and bone, all over the planet humans have developed impressive skills with diverse materials. Pearls to plastic, intricate filigree to strings of beads, jewellery has been about symbol, identity, status, personal expression, fashion, and wealth. It is also the stuff of myth, legend, and fairy tale. 

Just refer to J.R.R. Tolkien, who wrote an entire mythopoeia about jewellery. The Lord of the Rings (1954-55), of course, is all about destroying a piece of jewellery. The One Ring, forged by Sauron, is a tangible, autonomous vessel of his power. The great villain is himself a goldsmith! The ring is practically prescient, not to mention guileful. It can take action through its own will. It can render the wearer invisible. With the risk of the One Ring returning to the possession of Sauron, a hobbit must carry it to Mount Doom, the only volcanic fire that can melt the ring and thus free Middle Earth from its threat. That's a lot of power in a simple ring. 

Rings are easily worn upon one's person, yet within the circumference of a finger, are capable of containing significant, even monumental value. Signet rings were an early form of identification, found even in Minoan culture, and documents feature seals pressed from a ring. Rings could identify family, wealth, status and even occupation. Rings could also include stones that had particular meaning, including birthstones, stones for good luck or to ward off evil, stones that carried messages. Even today, engagement and wedding rings can be seen as 'binding' couples to each other and are worn every day. Out of all jewellery, it is especially important to size a ring to its intended wearer, for too small and it will not fit upon the finger, and too big, it will fall off and be lost.

Sauron's ring is a plain gold circle without gems. The fit of the ring uncannily adjusts to the wearer, so that Sauron and a hobbit alike can wear it. Its sole decoration is revealed through fire - an inscription in the Black Speech that asserts its power. In the Second Age, Sauron works with the elves, particularly the smiths of Ost-in-Edhil, planning to bind their power to his own through the rings they craft, his own ring eventually 'ruling' all others. Tolkien's own illustrations of the rings show simple designs - he wasn't a goldsmith, but to my eyes appears to be drawing on medieval rings. The Peter Jackson films, of course, did present a remarkable opportunity to design and craft the rings. The goldsmiths working on the films, including the New Zealand workshop of Jens Hansen, wove in elements of art deco, art nouveau, and other historical designs to create rings that enhance the beauty of the materials and speak to the skill of the smiths, all while considering wearability. After all, Narya, the ring of fire, was first given to Gil-galad, a warrior king, then to Círdan, the greatest shipwright, and finally to Gandalf, who will battle armies of Orcs and a Balrog, so the ring couldn't be cumbersome. Narya is barely seen in the films, but the polished ruby is nestled safely in its bezel, with what I suspect is a Nordic-inspired braid, perhaps suggesting marine rope, thoughtfully decorating the band. 

I was recently watching The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which is a prequel of sorts to The Lord of the Rings drawing upon Tolkien's wider mythology, and which covers this period - with significant poetic license. 

Celebrimbor, the celebrated Elven smith who forges the three Elven rings of power, makes a remark that is prescient in light of today's metal prices. Presented with just a nugget of mithril, a brighter, strong, silver-like metal worth much in Middle Earth, he muses, "If only there were some way of doing more with less." This is what all silversmiths today wonder and, in fact, rings are frequently the neat solution, requiring comparatively little metal. When I first learned the skills of smithing, I started with rings. Metal can be poured, hammered, soldered, and bent to form a perfect circle for a finger. While Celebrimbor initially thinks of crowns, Sauron suggests the smaller, move conveniently worn, item of jewellery.

I will confess, I wasn't entirely impressed with the rings in the Amazon series. Tolkien tells us the Elven rings feature stones - sapphire, ruby and adamant. The stones used in the series are nugget-like and their colour is wrong, particularly for natural, unpolished stones. Surely a master smith would have the stones cut and faceted to best bring out their sparkle? While uncut or raw stones are used today in jewellery, often to beautiful effect, good-quality gems will be crafted to bring out their qualities. The rings' design also lacks refinement - Nenya is particularly unwieldly and for a warrior princess like Galadriel, would catch and knock on everything. But the series focuses on the metal itself as a conduit of power. Value and power is bound in the rarity and cost of the metal, not in the artistry of the design and process. When looking at the workrooms of Celebrimbor, the furnaces that combine metals dominate, the jeweller's benches only briefly glimpsed. Today's valuation of metal over skill seems to dictate the treatment of Tolkien's Second Age, disregarding the artistic traditions of smithery.

In fairy tales, value is a more nebulous proposal, since the tales are filled with the most extravagant, big-budget jewels. Fairy godmothers, in particular, can lavish their favourites with incomparable wealth, ensuring their happy ever afters. Jewels for many centuries really did present families with a means of accumulating and displaying their wealth - no safe deposit boxes for these families. This is what we see amplified in the tales. For women, especially, jewellery offered a personal economic hoard, one that could be carried away should they need to make a getaway. One of the most famous rings belongs to Donkeyskin, a heroine who is in desperate need of such a getaway.

The heroine is not so popular - with exception of France where Jacques Demy's Peau d'âne (1970) is iconic. This is likely due to the threat of incest early in the plot. Straparola records Donkeyskin first in "Tebaldo" in the mid-sixteenth-century, only, she does not have her donkeyskin, despite this being a motif that was already circulating in France. Tebaldo's wife dies, making him promise only to wed a woman whose finger fits her ring. Of course, the only woman who can wear the ring is their daughter, Doralice, and the king is not a bit discouraged. As Doralice flees her degenerate father, the ring disappears from the narrative. 

Charles Perrault in 1695 allows the ring to play a more active role. Donkeyskin is born into a wealthy, powerful kingdom, where a donkey with fine ears poops gold coins. Along with a wardrobe of extraordinary dresses, the princess asks for the skin of the donkey and then flees her father's evil desire. She literally carries away the source of the kingdom's wealth - or a good portion of it - upon her back. She finds herself on a farm owned by another great king, still wearing the donkeyskin as a disguise. The Prince is a peeping tom, though, spying on her within her room. Seeing her beauty, he falls in love with her, demanding a cake made by her hands. She makes the cake and lets her ring fall into the batter, Perrault musing that perhaps she knew she was being watched and deliberately lost it. The prince eats her cake so greedily, he nearly swallows the ring. Finding it, he says he'll only marry the woman whose finger fits the ring. Women all over try all kinds of tricks to fit the ring, but it is always too small or too round. 

Ostensibly, this palava illustrates the unique perfection of Donkeyskin's delicate, well-formed digit, but it also reveals the skills of the goldsmith. The ring that fit Doralice's mother, too, is such a perfect fit upon her daughter's finger because she is the spitting image of her mother and her unique, beautiful proportions. In both cases, the goldsmith achieves a perfect sizing befitting the distinctive finger. This is a ring made to order, fitted with precision.

Perrault gives us a brief description of the ring featuring an emerald and a narrow gold band. This suggests the delicacy of the ring, but also its inherent value. On a whim, I sketched my impression of what the ring might look like. I drew the medieval-cut emerald flanked by subtle, drooping donkey ears, an ironic symbol of her father's kingdom. 

A sketch of the Donkeyskin ring

It is Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy who authored my favourite ring tales in the late seventeenth century. Rings are often lost. They are also gifted. They identify lost lovers and children. They can be magical or simply beautifully crafted. 

~ In "The Fair with the Golden Hair" the princess had lost a precious ring in the river and has "made a vow never to listen to any offers of marriage, if the ambassador, who proposes the husband, does not restore to me my ring." This seems entirely sensible.

~ In "The Pot of Pinks," the heroine has been gifted a silver ring by a great lady and as it transpires, if she marries the Prince with the ring, she will be forever happy. That the ring is not gold, but a more humble silver, highlights the heroine's unassuming upbringing.

~ In "The Beneficient Frog," the fairy-frog presents the king with a ring which will allow him to see his wife, captured by the Fairy Lioness, and even speak to that villain. A fairy-tale smartring if you will!

~ In "The White Cat," the heroine describes her turquoise ring and how the King gave her parrot - a bird of great sense - a ring "in return for my turquoise. It was a turquoise also; but much finer than mine, and cut in the shape of a heart, and surrounded with diamonds." Here d'Aulnoy gives us a lovely description of the ring itself, with the heart having obvious symbolic meaning, although the cut itself seems quite contemporary and certainly more prevalent these days. Turquoise is an opaque gemstone, but not as popular in France at the time, recalling Roman jewellery, thus perhaps giving the cat's tale a sense of antiquity. Again, I did a quick sketch of my take on the ring's design. 

A sketch of the ring in d'Aulnoy's The White Cat

~ In "The Pigeon and the Dove," d'Aulnoy describes marvels of a ring. The princess is besieged by toads, vipers, scorpions, and snakes, but they can not touch her: "Notwithstanding the terror she was in, she could not fail to notice this prodigy, and she could attribute it to nothing except the virtue of a ring; made under the influence of certain constellations, and given to her by her lover." She notes that it is inscribed with mysterious markings. She's also transformed into a dove by a ring. 

~ "Princess Carpillon" features a diamond ring. A shepherdess presents it to a queen, who is quite forgetful about it until her husband points out that it was a gift the queen had given him. The Queen had given it to her baby daughter, who was consequently lost, but has now been found in the garb of the shepherdess, herself fleeing a terrible suitor. The ring is a cunning piece of craft. It has a little spring, which reveals beneath the diamond setting the queen's portrait, rendered especially for the king. I've sketched an impression of this more masculine design, featuring a rather generous diamond. Much skill would be required to devise the spring in so small a jewel and between the diamond and the miniature portrait of the Queen, this ring is indeed a work of the goldsmith's art. It is rather delightful that d'Aulnoy gives us such details.

A sketch of the diamond ring from d'Aulnoy's Princess Carpillon

Ah well, a humble silversmith can dream of one day having the materials to make such splendid fairy-tale rings!! And as I write, the gold price is dropping, though by the time this post is posted, who knows?

Note: D'Aulnoy quotes taken from Anne Macdonell and Miss Lee's 1898 translation and J.R. Planché's 1855 translation.