ANSTHRLD - Branch device change-how to's?

[Richard Culver]

>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.

  I believe she does.  She drew her sister-in-laws device and I think one or 
two others without much complaint.


>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.

  That sound like it.


>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.

  I will have to confer with other heralds around here.  I am not in the 
position right now to order much of sqwat.



>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".

    To make the bird burning, would we have to remove the flame in the base?

>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.)

  We wanted to flame gules, not proper.

>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)

  See above about proper vs. gules.

>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.

    Can the phoenix be aflame and still be above the fire?

>Another possible killer: with half-Or half-gules everything
>swappiedoodle, it's gonna look visually complex.  There is a rule,
>VIII.3,


  I am already getting sick of the rules. :Þ  Half the charges I want for my 
personal device are banned. :(

>There are other artistic problems, but they can be fixed by just
>redrawing.  The bird outline mostly looks like a modern Japanese
>crane.

  That would be because the student who drew it happens to be a Japanese 
persona.  He just drew what he was familar with.  It was intend to be just a 
rough sketch anyway.

>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.

  I think we would be willing to redraw that. I had it pictured in my mind 
as encircling the bird anyway.

>
>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.

  Okay.  I will run it by the folk and ee what they say.

>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?

  Our "device contest", as it were, was essentially coloring in the black 
and white on the website.  There were Or field-gules charge and vice verse 
option colored but the per pale won by landslide.  I would like to keep it 
if possible.

>Has the group considered replacing the three annulets with three
>laurel wreaths (getting rid of the large one)?

   Originally the rings had a meaning. It however may have been lost since 
the original idea sprouted.  I will certainly ask about it.

>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.

  That would probably be a great idea.  I will pass it on to Wolf and see 
when we can get it in.

Thanks,
Cyniric

________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com

============================================================================
Go to http://lists.ansteorra.org/lists.html to perform mailing list tasks.