[Bards] Heraldic History (Was Symbology)

[Jay Rudin]

Yes, the Iris ribbon is a symbol of Iris, he messenger of the Gods, who
descended to Earth by a rainbow.  But for Iris's intervention, Artemis and
Apollo would not have been born.  Hera forbade Leto, Zeus's lover, to give
birth, and kept Ilithya, the goddess of childbirth, from attending to her.
Iris distracted Hera with a necklace, and took Ilithya to Leto on the island
of Delos.   Thus Apollo, the god of music, owes his life to Iris.

Be glad that the insignia is what it is now, not what it started out as.  In
the first charter, the insignia was six ribbons of different lengths, a long
red one, a slightly shorter orange one, and others descending through the
spectrum to the shortest purple one.

The star was indeed chosen to hearken back to earlier ones, but not just the
Texas flag.  It also was intended to reflect the birth of Ansteorra, in its
first group, which was Stargate.  The Stargate arms have a mullet of three
greater and six lesser points sable.  So the Ansteorran star was designed to
have the basic shape of the Texas star, with lesser points and color
reflecting the Stargate arms.

Robin of Gilwell / Jay Rudin

"What do they teach them in these schools?"