The Seven Sinner's Widows

This is a tale of 7 men, their 7 wives, and their 7 rings.
The first man was always a weak and frail soul, but he loved his wife and family dearly, as they did him. He struggled through many harsh winters with them, always doing his best to scavenge what little food was available to them. One winter, a particularly chilling one at that, the poor first man could find nothing to eat. All the bushes were picked clean by the wind, all the livestock slaughtered and taken by the cold, all the crops chewed and gnawed upon by the frost. The winter was greedy that year, and stopped anything edible ever reaching the family's plates. Distraught and starving, the mans wife went out one day and screamed to the cold heavens. "A curse on you, may you never satiate your cruel hunger!". With that, she hurled her wedding ring into the ground, breaking the divine bond between her and her husband, and using that power to curse the earth itself. That same winter, the cold took the wife. And both her dear children too.
The second man was rich, some say the richest in all the land, but he had a heart of ice. He never lent a scrap to anyone, never offered a penny to his fellow man, and never ever felt a spot of remorse for it. Generosity was profanity to him, until his wedding day. His wife, so kind and beautiful a soul, saw the good in all people, even him. She slowly coaxed and cajoled him free of his money-clutching bindings, and renewed his soul. Though a soul damaged by greed is not one that can ever, truly, be whole again. The Gods knew this, and they struck the man down for his cruelty and lack of compassion. As the man lay there, dying, wife by his side, he parted with the last reminder of his old ways. A ring of solid gold, he slipped from his finger, in an earnestness never felt before by the man. With that, he abandoned his greed entirely, channelling what remained of his lust for coin into this gold ring. The man died shortly after, and many say the ring still lies in the very road where the man died, now overgrown and wild, sickened by the pure greed and cruelty saturated within its gold surface.
The third man was a great warrior. No one doubted the fact, and many lords and ladies showered him with praise and awards for his prowess. The third man made his fortune as a tournament fighter and bodyguard to anyone who could cough up his kingly sum. One day, the warrior was challenged, but not by the common young knight vying to prove that they're worth their coat of arms, by an ageing farmer. The farmer simply asked to fight the knight, then and there. The warrior scoffed and refused, deeming the farmer far too pitiful a challenge for a man as great as he, but the farmer had a silver tongue, and offered the warrior the very thing he craved above all else - fame. The farmer promised to spread the word of the warrior's greatness far and wide, for the rest of his life, should the warrior beat him. Eager to match the offer, the warrior boasted of his prowess, and promised the farmer his armour and prized sword if the farmer won. The farmer was quite satisfied already, but the warrior had an audience now, as people gathered about his keep to witness the fight, and he liked to brag. He promised grander and grander rewards to the farmer if he could beat him, until his castle, servants, land, and very livelihood were at stake. As his promises grew ever more fanciful, his wife suspected that the farmer knew something no one else did, and begged the warrior to cease, but the warrior was enraptured with his performance, and would not stop. After much anticipation, the battle began - the warrior bedecked in his finest, strongest armour, and his sharpest, swiftest sword, while the farmer wielded a large stick and a straw hat. The true account of the battle has been lost, with ever more ridiculous retellings emerging every so often. What is certain, however, is that the warrior was beaten. Easily. The same day, the necessary arrangements for all that the warrior owned to be passed to the farmer were made and set, and the warrior had until the following dawn to leave. The next dawn came, but the farmer was not greeted with a pleasant sight upon his arrival at the warrior's castle. The warrior and his wife were hanged over the side of the keep's outer walls. The grandeur and pride of the warrior's life was reduced to two corpses hanging from a wall. The farmer, alone outside the keep, sighed, walked up to the warrior's corpse, and pulled the wedding ring from his finger. The farmer was never seen again, and the castle and corpses had disappeared by the time anyone else arrived to see it.