The story of the Chinese linking rings

If there's one famous trick that every magician generally performs at least once in their life, it's the Chinese Linking Rings. But do you really know where this trick comes from, what its origin is, and most importantly, did you know that these rings are anything but Chinese? We'll tell you all about it in this article, which is a summary of a booklet to be published soon on the subject!

The first descriptions

“The origin of the “Chinese Rings” is lost in the mists of time. Who invented them? No one knows. According to Robert-Houdin, it was the conjurer Philippe who first presented them in France; he got them from Chinese magicians he had met in London.”

Manuscript of the book on Odin's Chinese rings. Collection of the Centre de Recherche sur la Prestidigitation.

This question from Claudius Odin in the preface to his book Les anneaux chinois is quite legitimate. While many magicians at that time presented the ring trick, no one seemed to know its author or even its true origin. While it is true that Robert-Houdin describes this anecdote concerning Philippe in his Confidences, Claudius Odin makes a mistake regarding the location of the event, which took place in Dublin and not London, as the master from Blois reminds us:

“Three Chinese men, who had come from France to present various astonishing feats, had tried to give some performances in Paris which, due to a lack of proper publicity, only resulted in estranging the three inhabitants of the Celestial Empire. In France as well as in China, when there is no hay in the rack, horses fight, it is said; our three jugglers had not reached this extreme, but they had separated. One of them went to Dublin, and it was there that, at Philippe's request, he taught him the trick of the fish as well as that of the rings.”

By studying Philippe's movements in Ireland, we realize that he performed in the capital at least as early as August 1837 at the Adelphi Theatre. Interestingly, Philippe is found with three Chinese dancers in November of the same year; is this enough to confirm Robert-Houdin's statements? More generally, Philippe seems to appreciate this Chinese and more broadly Asian culture, as he presented a complete act entitled A Soirée of Indian and Chinese Physics a few years later.

Although he returned to Dublin several times, it was certainly during his first visit that Philippe learned the ring trick. Proof of this is an article mentioning this trick performed by Philippe as early as 1844, and the engraving Philippe der berühmte Zauberer aus Paris published in 1840 shows Philippe performing the trick of the fishbowls. If Robert-Houdin's account proves true, and Philippe did indeed learn the fish and ring tricks at the same time, then it was probably between 1837 and 1840, somewhere in Dublin.

But if the conjurer Philippe is the oldest master of the rings that Robert-Houdin remembers, that does not mean - far from it - that he was the first to perform them on the European continent. Indeed, not far from Philippe in 1837, Anderson, The great wizard of the North, was already performing in Carlisle (England) with the "Chinese rings". Let's also mention Kien Long "the celebrated Chinese Juggler, [who] will go through his astonishing Feats with Rings, Balls, Plates, &c.".

It therefore seems very difficult to find a precise description of the trick as it was performed at that time. Only an excerpt from the Kentish Gazette of 1838 gives us some information on Mr. Jacob's method when he was performing in Canterbury (England):

“The variety of forms into which the Chinese rings were thrown, by a sudden jerk of the wrist or a wield of the arm, was astonishing ; the more so as, upon a strict examination of the rings, it was impossible to discover the joints by which they could be linked together.”

Although very concise, this excerpt has the advantage of being contemporary with the first performances of Chinese linking rings by Philippe, Anderson, and a few others. We can see that the idea of creating "figures" with the rings is not new, and that the metal circles were already subject to close examination. However, we do not know whether the spectator, as today, was an integral part of the act by examining the equipment and then acting as the magician's assistant, or whether he was simply invited to examine the rings before the trick.

Beyond this description, we have not found any others before the detailed description given by J.-N. Ponsin in his first volume of the Nouvelle magie blanche dévoilée (1853). The author not only shows that "objects of small diameter [...] [such as] rings" were already used by magicians in some of their tricks, and even provides a way to palm them, but above all describes with great precision the "Trick of the large rings which are shown separately closed and well soldered, and which are linked together before the spectators' eyes."

This is probably the first such long and precise description of the ring trick in French. Ponsin gives many details on how this act was presented at the time:

“These rings are usually six in number; they can be made of copper or iron. Their size varies, but, on average, they are given about 20 centimeters in diameter; as for the thickness of the metal wire from which they are made, 7 to 8 millimeters will suffice.”

The author continues his description with the famous trick that makes this trick possible:

“Of these six rings, only one is open, two are intertwined and soldered; the other three are separated and also soldered. The opening of the first is a little wider than the thickness of the branches from which they are formed. We say: "Here are six rings that are solidly soldered." We count them: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. We move them slightly away while counting them, so that it is not noticed that there are two that are joined together.”

Nearly 160 years later, it is striking to note that things have not changed one iota. The counting is still done in this way in the majority of cases, and the principle of having a key ring for two already soldered ones has not been modified (for the most common versions, each magician can obviously adapt this trick to their liking). The number of 6 rings also seems to have been retained nowadays, even if J.-N. Ponsin specifies later that "everyone has their own way of performing. Some double and even triple the set of rings, making twelve or eighteen. Then, one can make larger chains and more varied figures; but this does not surprise the spectators any more, and, in my opinion, this multitude of rings only serves to create confusion and heaviness in the execution. I prefer this trick with only six rings."

The different mechanisms

Several years after Ponsin's book was published, Robert-Houdin wrote in Comment on devient sorcier (1878) his own description of the ring trick. Accompanied by numerous engravings to aid understanding of the text, some details differ from Ponsin's version. We note, for example, that Robert-Houdin describes the "doubled" version of Ponsin's, i.e., with twelve rings. Finally, let's note the figures that Robert-Houdin proposes to make with these metal rings: those of the stirrup, or of the sphere, figures still presented today.

Figure extracted from Robert-Houdin's book

When the ring trick is performed close to the spectators, the master from Blois recommends the "mechanical key" version: "the ends of the key must touch and are even joined by a small point entering a conical hole in the manner of certain earrings". This system is atypical, and relatively uncommon, particularly because its execution is much more delicate than the classic version with a simple opening. However, this "mechanical key" method is described in an undated and anonymous 19th-century Spanish manuscript that dedicates an entire chapter to "Los anillos del indostan", meaning: "the Hindu rings", another name for this famous trick. The manuscript even gives India as the origin of this emblematic trick, although it states that this experiment was first seen in Paris.

In addition to being certainly one of the first descriptions of the trick in Spanish, the detail of this type of mechanism is also very rare. Last but not least, the manuscript makes numerous references to Philippe, and the fact that it indicates that this trick came from Paris and gives the method for performing this trick with eight rings (the same number that Philippe used) can lead us to hypothesize that Philippe himself presented this trick with such a key.

If this were to be confirmed, it would be surprising to see that this trick spread in its simplest version (i.e., with a simple open key, not mechanical) among the main trick dealers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Although Roujol's catalog (a catalog that can be considered the first of its kind) makes no mention of this trick, subsequent dealers did not fail to offer it. Let us cite, among many others, L. Baudot, J.-L. Rousselin, or J. Caroly, who in turn presented them under the name "Indian rings".

An origin yet to be defined

While the 19th century seems to be the moment when the ring trick became popular and its modern form appeared, the origin of this effect is much older.

In 1785, the celebrated Joseph Pinetti describes in his Amusemens physiques a "way to make a ring change hands [...] by having someone hold your arms, to prevent them from communicating." While it is not about the Chinese linking rings trick, we still note that the use of rings of more or less large size in illusion shows was already current.

It was also in the same year that Pinetti's rival, Henry Decremps, published his Supplément à la magie blanche dévoilée in which he revealed the existence of slightly split rings to free oneself from chains, with a change of rings at the end of the trick to allow for examination. We thus find the concept of key rings, but for a completely different trick. This is interesting insofar as one can hypothesize that tricks based on rings seem to have a common basic origin: that of escape. Indeed, what other interest would the magician initially have in using rings for the performance of a trick? As with every illusion, context is essential, and one cannot use accessories whose use is not justified.

Every man would dream of being able to free himself from chains to which he had been attached, and it is surely with this in mind that many escape effects involving people tied to each other are described in various books, such as in the Récréations mathématiques et physiques (1725) where the author describes a way to "make two people whose hands are tied together by ropes escape." While the material is completely different, the concept of interlinking rings is never far away, and this trick undoubtedly serves as a subtle transition to that of the Chinese linking rings.

However, it should not be assumed that the Chinese linking rings appeared at that time. The rope escape tricks still described in 1725 are vestiges of the beginnings of the ring trick, and the Chinese linking rings are already found a few years earlier around 1700 in L'Alexis Firmaco, ou antidote pour passer la mélancolie by Thomas L'Escot. This booklet explains how to "pretend to break three iron rings that are intertwined". In this short description, accompanied by a figure, a key ring with a "crevasse" that you must "hide in your hand" is mentioned.

Even earlier, and almost a century before the publication of this booklet, the manuscript La magie du Pont Neuf (n.d. [1643-1654]) proposes to "Make three separate rings link into one another by throwing them in the air." This description has the merit of providing a drawing of this trick, but it is only performed with three rings (including one key ring). Another interesting point is that the effect then simply consists of linking and unlinking three rings shown separately only once. Proof that the effect was quick and almost considered anecdotal at the time, the author insists on the necessity of staging the whole thing because "in matters of tricks that are hardly worth anything on their own, they are worth even less if one does not adjust them with charm and by the subtlety of the hands."

This is certainly the first French description of the ring trick, although it is in a most simplified version. While we find slightly older mentions of this trick, it is only in fragments or very elliptically, and always from the spectator's point of view recounting the effect, and not from the magician's point of view performing it.

Let's quote Jérôme Cardan around 1550 in De la subtilité, subtiles inventions, ensemble les causes occultes et raisons d’icelles (Book XVIII), who mentions that some jugglers are able to "tie iron chains, the rings remaining intact: I have seen three rings fall linked together, which before were intact and separate, by throwing them up...". This new testimony almost a century before La magie du Pont-Neuf proves to us that the ring trick was certainly presented with only three rings at its origin, before evolving towards an increasing number of metal circles.

One must also look to the Italian side to find a similar mention of rings used for magical purposes around 1550. In Opera nuova non piu vista, the author, Francesco da Miláo, writes the following lines:

« Far uno giocho de tre catene che pareran no tutte tre una sola. Farai far tre anelli da cadena doi ne farai interi & uno spicato & tu lo potri fare integro, & disfarai a posta tua, & no la dar in mano adaltri, acio che non s’corgino di quella rotta. »

This is most certainly the first description of a key ring for the ring trick in magical literature, described here as "rotta" ("broken"). While various bibliographies give us an estimated date of 1550 for the publication of this work, we do not have much more precision.

We regret the absence of this trick, which has become a classic today, in I. Prevost's (1584) Première partie des subtiles et plaisantes inventions. Although considered the foundational French book of magic, many effects that one might have expected in this book are not mentioned, such as the famous cups and balls trick. Perhaps the author reserved these classics for his second part (which seems to have never seen the light of day?). In any case, an entire chapter is still dedicated to tricks with "rings" and it does mention how to get a ring out of a rope tied at both ends, which relates more to some derivatives of the ring trick as we have seen previously.

Finally, let's mention Symon de Millan, who around 1545, failing to mention the ring trick, describes the use of a ring in a trick involving "transferring a ring from a handkerchief to a cup."

Chinese Rings today

As we have seen, the current Chinese linking rings acts are in fact nothing new and have been performed since time immemorial.

Finally, if the ring trick doesn't seem to have evolved much in recent years, except for a few new moves here and there, a new and recent direction has completed this effect. The magician Victor Voitko has indeed managed to combine this classic routine with levitation effects. Thus, the rings now link together in the air, or fly to the magician.