Why a Ring?

[Belin]

Good companions ought to encourage a young prince in battle and in ring-giving. ...A king must give out rings in the hall.

--Maxims II

In Anglo-Saxon culture, one thing a good lord did was give rings to his followers. This is extremely prevalent and, in fact, comes up in almost all of the rather limited Old English reading I've done so far. It was his way of displaying generosity, in exchange for which I gather he could claim their loyalty.

In Sauron's case, of course, generosity is a snare, but it's rather odd to me that he's the only one that seems to have used rings in this way, since they didn't have negative implications in the maxims... Any thoughts on this? Any more detailed accounts by more knowledgable members?

Incidentally, looking for this on the search engine turns up some rather interesting stuff.

--Belin Ibaimendi

[ October 07, 2002: Message edited by: Belin ]