ANSTHRLD - Branch device change-how to's?
Richard Culver
rbculver at hotmail.com
Sat Apr 29 18:55:01 PDT 2000
>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
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