ANSTHRLD - Branch device change-how to's?

[tmcd at jump.net]

On Sat, 29 Apr 2000, Richard Culver <rbculver at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >I'm feeling a premonition of dread here.
>
> Are you always so optimistic?

Of course.  There's an attitude on alt.sysadmin.recovery that all
software sucks (just some sucks worse than others), all hardware
sucks, all (l)users suck, work sucks, life sucks, everything sucks.
Get to be an old used herald and a similar attitude can seep in.
It's not to the point of needing bourbon to get thru an ILoI, though.
Coca-cola, though, that's a necessity.

> Okay, we happen to be associated with a very talented artist.  We
> can do.

Do they have experience with heraldic art in particular?  Heraldic art
has its own conventions and stylizations.  For example, naturalistic
lions and landscapes are great in tapestries and paintings (hep me,
hep me, I been Branwynized!), but aren't good in heraldry.

> >That premised: a canton should NOT piss off the barony.
> >Especially, a new canton should NOT piss off a barony with more
> >than $10,000 in their treasury.  (Are you guys *nuts*?)
>
> Well, that is one of the many labels given Glaslyn over the years,
> but we feel rational enough.

Ack! but that was unskillfully written!  What I *meant*: If you ever
*did do* something that pissed off the Steppes, my reaction
*would then be* "Are you guys nuts?".

>    the field is Or, in the center a pheonix maintaining a laurel
> wreath, a fire coming from the base (issuant, I believe), in chief
> three rings. All gules.  this is then countercharged(?) per pale.

As you mentioned in another note, I looked at
    http://www.glaslyn.org/device.html
which is an outline drawing.

If I understand you correctly: the tinctures are divided down the
middle; the viewer's left half of the design ("dexter") is gold, with
all the things on it red, and the viewer's right half has a red
background and everything on it gold?  If so, I'd blazon the drawing
    Per pale gules and Or, a bird displayed in annulo between two
    sprigs of laurel, a point pointed of flame [proper?], in chief
    three annulets, all counterchanged.

Hrm.  Hrm.  The sketch can be improved, but I see several possible
killer problems.

Bruce Draconarius of Mistholm and Akagawa Yoshio, _A Pictorial
Dictionary of Heraldry / as Used in the SCA_, 2nd ed. -- the "Pic Dic"
for short -- is available in your area.  You can get a copy from Free
Trumpet Press West, and I strongly advise you or your group to get it;
it's extremely helpful for the SCA herald.  Oakenwald (the pursuivant
of the Steppes), Da'ud, Adelicia or Tadhg, other Steppers, Elfseers,
et cetera, should all have copies you can look at.

When looking at arms in period, the charges were sometimes small and
were stylized.  How did you tell what kind of bird it was?  Answer: it
had standard attributes.  For example, you could tell that such-and-so
was a hawk because it was "close" (wings held against its body, facing
to dexter), and because it usually had a hawk's hood, jesses, and/or
bells on it.  If it was displayed, it was an eagle, even though the
body was very similar to the hawk's.  If it was close, head facing the
viewer ("guardant"), and had a big head and eyes, it was an owl.  If
it was skinny, "close", and held a stone in one long leg, it was a
crane.  If it was close but had hairy feathers, it was a crow.  Und so
weider.

The legend of the phoenix has the phoenix burning itself and being
renewed from the ashes.  (Christians adopted the symbol for that
reason.)  The Pic Dic depiction (item 563) has the tail, the lowermost
body, and about to start on the wings in flames.  All the phoenices
I've seen had had part of the bird burning.

I've never seen one where the bird was up *there* and the flame was
down *there* and they're barely touching at one point.  That's why I
blazoned it "a bird and a point pointed of flame".

It looks like "a point pointed of flame".  A "point pointed" (item
574) is when the bottom part of the shield is covered by a sort of
diamond-shaped area.  The flames here are as a straight-sided point
pointed.  (Furthermore, there are little drops of flame in the larger
flame, which makes me wonder if "flame proper" was intended.  This
wouldn't be a correct depiction, mind you: flames proper are
alternating tongues of red and gold flames.)

Killer problem: Precedents of Da'ud (second tenure, second year),
under Flames:
    The sinister half of the tree is not really "flaming", but is
    rather "of flames".  We have not allowed charges of flame for
    quite some time.  Additionally most of the commenters noted that
    counterchanging a charge, half of which is proper, does not appear
    to have any period or modern exemplars.  .... (Da'ud ibn Auda,
    LoAR July 1994, p. 11)

Another possible killer: charges that blur the distinction between two
distinct types of charge are returned.  For example, a horse is a
horse, of course, of course.  A unicorn has a goat-ish body with a
lion's tail and a horn.  A "unicornate horse" has a horse's body with
a horn.  It's returned for blurring the distinction between two things
that get a difference.  I would argue that a bird there and flame over
there blurs the distinction between a phoenix and other birds, and is
cause for return.

Another possible killer: with half-Or half-gules everything
swappiedoodle, it's gonna look visually complex.  There is a rule,
VIII.3,
     Armorial Identifiability - Elements must be used in a design so
     as to preserve their individual identifiability.

     Identifiable elements may be rendered unidentifiable by
     significant reduction in size, marginal contrast, excessive
     counterchanging, ...
I've just printed it and colored it.  I think it's still identifiable,
because it's a simple line of division with a bilaterally-symmetric
design.  However, I can see others arguing that it's too much.

There are other artistic problems, but they can be fixed by just
redrawing.  The bird outline mostly looks like a modern Japanese
crane.  The Pic Dic and Parker (N.B.: I do NOT recommend looking up
the Seymour badge emblazonin Parker.  That is one truly lousy-looking
phoenix -- Victorian, maybe?) agree that the phoenix resembles an
eagle.  The Pic Dic says that it has a crest.  The bird on the Glaslyn
page doesn't have a raptor beak, a heraldic eagle's ruffled feathers
or distinct large feathers.

Another precedent:
    The laurel wreath needs a redraw, to look more like a laurel
    wreath, which should be circular in shape. (Jaelle of Armida, LoAR
    December 1998, p. 17)
The depiction has, not a wreath, but "two sprigs of laurel", and would
be returned for lacking a laurel wreath.  I think the leaves should be
larger and ovoid.  The Texas state seal has one of its sprigs being of
laurel; that can be a model for the leaves.  The invaluable Pic Dic
has a picture too.


So, how to fix it?  First, I'd make it a real phoenix enflamed.  (Or
an eagle and leave off the flame, but given the story we heard, I
suspect Glaslyn wants the "rebirth" notion.)  It'd be a bird with
flame around the bottom.  The laurel wreath has to grow anyway; it'd
have to expand out a bit more to accomodate the pheonix.

I'd also ask the group whether the "per pale counterchanged" was
significant to them, or whether it was just done to avoid conflict or
something -- would they consider Or field-gules charges or
gules field-Or charges to be just as good?

Has the group considered replacing the three annulets with three
laurel wreaths (getting rid of the large one)?  "A charge within a
wreath" is an SCA cliche hardly ever done in period, tho it's
understandable why, given the verdammt required laurel wreath.  Doing
three wreaths instead of three annulets allows the phoenix to expand
more.  I don't think that makes it harder to draw: true, there are
more wreaths, but each is smaller, so you can do a few leaves on each;
further, you may be able to stencil.  (In conflict-checking terms, it
also makes the design "simple" according to X.2, which makes
conflict-checking a bit easier and decreases the chance of conflict.)

I wonder whether Glaslyn would like a few heralds from Elfsea and the
Steppes to come up and consult with a populace meeting?  Some
questions ought to be answered first, so the "road trippers" can come
prepared with suggestions that are likely to be amenable to the
group.

Daniel de Lincolia
-- 
Tim McDaniel (home); Reply-To: tmcd at jump.net; 
if that fail, my work address is tmcd at us.ibm.com.
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 thing up to and including this sig!" -- Jukka.Korpela at hut.fi (Jukka Korpela)

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