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Finally, it betrayed his hand,
At wit's end, while seeking shelter,
In the cold and treacherous waters of the river,
Gloomy shores, abounding of sorrow,
It availed nothing, alas,
Malice had already plotted its early release,
From the firm finger of the poor king,
Whence the golden Ring slipped,
Giving way to the ruthless volley of the Orcs,
Leading a noble to his impious doom and our story to excruciating protraction.

In 410 d.C. Emperor Honorius sent a letter to the main cities of Britannia urging them to provide for their own survival. With this message, which has gone down in history as the "resurrection of Honorius", the emperor sanctioned the definitive Roman abandonment of Britain. Most of the citizens present in the region decided to stay on the island by strengthening their defenses. There was in fact no safe place to escape: ferocious hordes of barbarians already raged in Gaul, in Ispania and even in Italy. But for mysterious reasons the ancient Roman city of Calleva Atrebatum, located in the present county of Hampshire, was completely abandoned. Some scholars speculate that the main cause was the outbreak of the bubonic plague, which exterminated the population in a short time. Calleva Atrebatum became a ghost town, a heap of cursed ruins from which to turn off. Several legends of spirits that infested the site arose and for a long time nobody dared to settle there. But in 1785 a simple English peasant, wandering around the fields around the cursed city, found a rather unusual ring. This was in gold, much larger than a normal ring, and was engraved with the writing (in Latin) "Senicianus alive in the god". For about a century no more was known, until some archaeologists found a tablet in the surrounding area, bearing a bleak curse: "For the god Nodens. Silvianus lost a ring and donated half of his value to Nodens. Among those who bear the name of Senicianus no one is allowed health until he returns the ring to the temple of Nodens ".
It seems that the ring belonged to such a Silvianus, who saw him steal from Senicianus and then decided to hurl a curse on it, invoking the ancient Celtic god Nodens. The only way to break the anathema, for the thief Senicianus, would be to bring the ring back to the sacred temple of Nodens.

In 1929 the head of the team of archaeologists, Sir Mortimer Wheeler, communicated the outcome of his discovery to a friend, a certain J.R.R. Tolkien. In all likelihood the history of the Roman ring of Silvianus was the main source of inspiration for the famous opera "The Lord of the Rings".

Ach, zumindest von Lars, DKD und BAAEEMM hab ich noch Zeug in meiner Tunngle (und Skype) Zitatesammlung.