ANST - heraldic question re: blazonability

John Ruble ulf at urocor.com
Tue Jun 23 11:59:45 PDT 1998


'Wolf queried:

> are "anthromorphics" blazonable ???
>
> these being human of animal forms that have been "deconstructed" into
> knotwork
> designs that represent and define the thing ... usually with distinct
> heads, or body
> parts that define the animal or human within the design ... seen it 
used
> in celtic and
> norse iconography (rune stones for example ...)

No.  At one time in the distant past, the CoA allowed some odd knotwork 
monsters, but they have since learned better.  Can you draw a picture of 
a "Norse Bog Beast" without looking it up in an SCA-only resource?

The main reason (in my opinion) is simplicity of style.  Heraldically, a 
cat means... a cat.  A lion is a lion, usually drawn in medieval heraldic 
fashion.  Occasionally you may see a natural lion, drawn more 
realistically.  But you should never see a Celtic Lion.  You and I can 
probably sketch rough pictures of what each of the above looks like, 
except for the Celtic Lion.  Mine would be hard to tell apart from the 
Celtic Dog, and my Celtic Eagle looks a lot like your Norse Griffin.

Unless the art style restricts the representation to something near to a 
"rubber stamp", it is too hard to blazon.

Now, if you want to register something like "Sable, a man fretted of 
himself argent", and draw it with northern European anthropomorphic 
style, go for it.  Just don't try to register the style.

Ulf
A knotty problem...
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