three halfpennies

There is a singular custom prevailing in some parts of Northamptonshire and probably there are other places where a similar practice exists. If a female is afflicted with fits, nine pieces of silver money and nine three-halfpennies are collected from nine bachelors. The silver money is converted into a ring to be worn by the afflicted person and the three-halfpennies (i.e. 13½d.) are paid to the maker of the ring, an inadequate remuneration for his labor but which he good-naturedly accepts.

1855, Charles Edwards, The History and Poetry of Finger-rings, chapter iii, § 6, page 133