Item #23: The Brisings Ring

For context on the world, please see the Intro post and context on the rings of The Sorcerer King, please see Item 22.

Now that we have established who The Sorcerer King was, we can start with the rings he used to become a feared and powerful magic user, as well as how he used them to overthrow Gwyddno Garanhir and become the new King of Cantre’r Gwaelod.

And we will be starting with the first ring he used to implement step one in his plan to take over Cantre’r Gwaelod. And that ring is the Brisings ring, which was named after Freya’s necklace, The Necklace of the Brisings.

Which coincidentally, I have collected on behalf of Sister Death. I was sent to collect it due to the fact that I already had all the rings of the next collection and there was no need to travel around to pick them up one by one, as with the Excalibur collection. But The Necklace of the Brisings, is classified as a cursed item. This means I can’t talk about it publicly, but if you want to learn about The Necklace of the Brisings and its origins, you can! The post, Item #128 The Necklace of the Brisings, will be available on my Patreon, here:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/item-128-of-156430830?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link 

Anyway… back to the ring. Now as mentioned The Sorcerer King decided that after gaining two rings, that, that is what he was going to use as his main power source. And while searching for his next three rings, he got the idea to get a ring that had the same power as Freya’s necklace.

That being the power to reflect and show whoever looks at it their deepest and most wanted heart’s desire. Now unlike me (and if you want to know as well, consider checking out the Item #128 The Necklace of the Brisings post on my Patreon), The Sorcerer King didn’t know the full story of the necklace, how it was made or the deal Freya made to obtain it.

But what The Sorcerer King did know was who made it. It was the Brísingamen brothers, who were four skilled metalsmiths. Their names were Dvalinn, Alfrik, Berlingr, and Grer. Although at first no one knew their names, but after Odin, Freya’s husband at the time, found out about the necklace, he had them captured and thrown in prison.

So, that made it easy for The Sorcerer King to locate them, but getting to them and getting to make him a ring, was a whole other ball game. But luckily The Sorcerer King was friends with Baldr’s assassin, Loki (see Item #59: Eilifligh flamberge or the Immortal killer).

Now even though we know Loki killed Odin’s son, Baldr, Odin at the time didn’t know. He believed that Loki was innocent and even considered Loki as a brother. This meant that Loki was close to Odin and was allowed to go anywhere he liked in Asgard, which The Sorcerer King planned on taking full advantage of.

With the help of Loki, The Sorcerer King got the dwarves out of the Asgardian prison and took them back to their cave and workshop.

There The Sorcerer King asked them to make another Brisings, but this time in the form of a ring. And although he couldn’t offer the same gift as Freya, The Sorcerer King promised them that he wouldn’t take them back to prison, but will let them stay in their cave forever.

The dwarves agreed and used the same materials that was left over from the necklace (see the exclusive post: Item #128 The Necklace of the Brisings on Patreon to learn what materials they used).

Except, The Sorcerer King requested that they add an extra element, an obsidian mirror, which he took from the corpse of a tlamatiquetl (a shaman), from the land of Cemanahuac. The Sorcerer King acquired this mirror after he found his Ring of Midas, more on that later.

The obsidian mirror is used by the tlamatiquetl to make predictions and reveal a person’s true intentions. But the obsidian mirror The Sorcerer King found was broken and could only reveal the truth, but that was good enough for him.

This is how The Sorcerer King could tell that Balthazar Blake was lying. But one might ask: “How could he then not tell that Merlin was lying, when he faked his death?”

To that I answer: One, for the ring’s truth powers to work, one must look at the ring very closely, and Merlin and The Sorcerer King stood too far away from each other. And secondly, Merlin didn’t fake his death. He actually died, but the piece of peach brought him back, thus Merlin wasn’t lying.

After the dwarves made the ring, The Sorcerer King then used his magic to cause a cave-in that trapped the Brísingamen brothers in their cave. When they yelled out that The Sorcerer King had betrayed them, The Sorcerer King replied that he didn’t. For he promised that he will let them stay in their cave forever, which he fulfilled. It was also a convenient way to prevent the dwarves from making more Brisings jewellery.

The Sorcerer King then added a special engraving to the ring that cursed it to stay on his finger forever. In a later document I will expand on this.

Anyhow… The Sorcerer King now had the power to enchant and entice anyone who looked at the ring, and giving him the power to control them, as well as giving him the power to see their true intentions.

The Sorcerer King used this ring to keep the kingdom’s citizens in line and controlled them by promising to fulfil their wants. But he never did, instead he oppressed them and used them to do his bidding!

This included, forcing them into his army or making them his slaves, to serve and fulfil his every need and want in the palace.

The Sorcerer King controlled people by getting them addicted to looking at the ring, as it put them in a dreamlike state, similarly to a drug. So when he took the ring away from them, they would do anything to look at the ring again and enter the sweet dream life that the ring showed them!

Now I should mention that The Sorcerer King also had a special glove made, that only covers his pinkie, which is where he placed the Brisings ring.

He did that because that is how he could control people the most. He would show them the ring, get them addicted or promised to make the dream they saw come true and then hide the ring, promising to show it to them again, but only once they did what he asked them to do.

He also had to cover it up, as most found it too distracting, preventing them from doing the tasks given to them.

He also had it made to only cover his pinkie because otherwise he wouldn’t be able to affectively use the other rings.

Now this ring was used in The Sorcerer King’s first step in taking over the kingdom of Cantre’r Gwaelod. You see to help weaken King Gwyddno Garanhir’s defences and allow his Viking and Deep Ones army to easily take over the city he had to flood it. Thus allowing the boats filled with men to sail in and to let the fish people swim straight into the kingdom without any real opposition.

To do this, The Sorcerer King sent in the Viking King Seithennin on a fake diplomatic mission.

Seithennin was sent in to scope out the area and help The Sorcerer King get close to the fairy Mererid, a priestess and follower of The Lady of the Lake.

According to the history books, the great-grandfather of King Gwyddno Garanhir, King Maes Gwyddno, grew very arrogant because he controlled the best fishing spots in the British Isles and blocked off anyone from entering by deploying his navy to destroy and plunder any boat that came too close. The only way to pass safely and get some good fishing done was to pay an insane amount of money to pass. And even after you pay, the navy would take half of what you caught.

This annoyed The Lady of the Lake, who then proceeded to stop any more fish from going to the spots patrolled by Maes Gwyddno’s navy. This made Maes Gwyddno so angry that he cursed The Lady of the Lake and polluted her oceans. The Lady of the Lake then cursed all of the wells in the kingdom to constantly overflow, creating floods, destroying homes and killing many people. But even then Maes Gwyddno refused to apologise.

The people of Cantre’r Gwaelod revolted and killed Maes Gwyddno. Then they pleaded with The Lady of the Lake to stop the floods. The Lady of the Lake agreed to stop, but only on the condition that the son of Maes Gwyddno, Gwyddno Cardigan, and his offspring, must honour her and every year the Kings and Queens of Cantre’r Gwaelod, must henceforth pay a big sum to a fairy priestess that The Lady of the Lake sent to calm the water in the wells and stop them from flowing over. This fairy was Mererid.

And so the Kings and Queens of Cantre’r Gwaelod honoured this deal with The Lady of the Lake, who sent the fairy every year to receive a large payment of gold, silver, diamonds and crop. And in exchange the fairy stops the wells from flooding the kingdom.

And it was around this time of year that The Sorcerer King went to Cantre’r Gwaelod and waited for the fairy priestess to appear. The fairy, Mererid, arrived, but before she could fulfil her duties, The Sorcerer King distracted her with his Brisings ring, just long enough for Seithennin to kidnap her. Mererid was never seen again after that!

This caused the wells to submerge the kingdom in water, which allowed Viking ships to sail and the Deep Ones to swim directly towards the castle.

But that is where I will stop for now. The story will be continued when I go over the next ring The Sorcerer King used that helped him achieve his goal. 

The next ring is also the reason why The Sorcerer King can use the Brisings ring without it affecting him. Because it also affects the wearer of the Brisings jewellery. And the way The Sorcerer King did this was by cutting out his own heart, because that is what the ring and the necklace uses to enchant people.

But of course no one can live without a heart, so The Sorcerer King needed a ring that granted him immortality. This meant The Sorcerer King had to first find such an object before he could even ask the four dwarves for the ring discussed above.

And that is the next ring I will be examining, Item #25 The ring of Ouroboros.

Now you might wonder: how I was able to examine the Brisings ring without falling for its charms? And the answer is simple. When Odin learned that the Brísingamen brothers escaped, he searched all over for them. He eventually found them dead in their cave, most likely due to dehydration. There Odin found a special pair of goggles that was used by the dwarves to stop them from giving in to the spell that the ring and the necklace casted.

These special goggles had a tint on them that negated the effects of the jewellery, just like the special case that the hand is held in (see Item #22 The hand of The Sorcerer King).

I was also sent one of the dwarves’ goggles so that I may write up a full report for Lady Wisdom and for the ark’s archives. Lady Wisdom put a safe guard on the hand’s case, that it can only be opened when the goggles are worn.

The Lady of the Lake also put a protocol in place that sets off a sprinkler system to flood the ark in case someone was to open the case with the goggles and then take the goggles off, drowning them.

Now I don’t know about you, but I like being dry and able to breathe, so my need for those two things trumps my curiosity to look at the Brisings ring without the goggles!

But in any case, I will continue in Item #25: The ring of Ouroboros.

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