and the Ring. {2} In this legend a girl comes as the unwelcome sixth
of the family of a very poor man who lived under the shadow of York
Minster. A Knight, riding by on the day of her birth, discovers, by
consultation of the Book of Fate, that she was destined to marry his
son. He offers to adopt her, and throws her into the River Ouse. A
fisherman saves her, and she is again discovered after many years by
the Knight, who learns what Fate has still in store for his son. He
sends her to his brother at Scarborough with a fatal letter, ordering
him to put her to death. But on the way she is seized by a band of
robbers, who read the letter and replace it by one ordering the
Baron's son to be married to her immediately on her arrival.

When the Baron discovers that he has not been able to evade the
decree of fate he still persists in his persecution, and taking a
ring from his finger throws it into the sea, saying that the girl
shall never live with his son till she can show him that ring. She
wanders about and becomes a scullery-maid at a great castle, and one
day when the Baron is dining at the castle, while cleaning a great
fish she finds his ring, and all ends happily.

Now on the east wall of the chancel of Stepney Church there is a
monument erected to Dame Rebecca Berry, wife of Thomas Elton, of
Stratford, Bow, and relict of Sir John Berry, 1696. The arms on the
monument are thus blazoned by heralds . . . . "Paly of six on a bend
three mullets (Elton) impaling a fish, and in the dexter chief point
an annulet between two bends wavy." The reference in the impalement
of the blazon is obvious. A local tradition confidently identifies
Dame Berry as the heroine of the Yorkshire legend, though of course
it is ignorant of her connection with the etymology of
Constantinople.