ANSTHRLD - Device question

[Timothy A. McDaniel]

"Kendall Johnson" <avalon at arn.net> wrote:
> I can't begin to blazon it, but here is the best description
> for it. It begins with a Per saltire sable and or with the left
> and right areas divided into three smaller ">" and "<" similar
> to a chevron but from the side of the device for a total of
> four chevrons.I know chevron is wrong, but this is the best I
> can explain it. The tinctures would be alternating sable and
> or. In the bottom area would be a Fleur de lis sable.
> 
...
> anyone have any idea how to blazon something like this. It is
> above my humble skills.

It's above my not-so-humble skills as well.  A field division of
repeated chevron stripes is "chevronelly" (like "bendy" is a
pattern of diagonal stripes and "paly" a pattern of slimming
vertical stripes).  However, like chevrons, they're point up.
Like bendy et al, they also fill the area allotted to them, so
you'd get shorter and shorter chevrons as you approach the base.

Chevrons can be issuant from the flanks of the shield.  This is
called "couched".  It's done so rarely that I'd have to go look
it up to be sure exactly.  I believe "couched from dexter" would
be for chevrons issuant from the dexter flank.  However, chevrons
may be steeper than "per salture" lines, and earlier in period
definitely tended to be.  Thus, there's no guarantee that they'll
fit into the per salt quarters.

I can't figure what exactly you have from the verbal description.
"Per saltire sable and Or, two chevrons couched from dexter and
two more couched from sinister Or" doesn't line up the chevrons
to the per saltire.  "Per salture sable, chevronelly fesswise
reversed sable and Or, chevronelly fesswise sable and Or, and
sable" conjoins terms I've never seen combined before, and I
don't know of a standard order to blazon the quarters of per
saltire.

"Difficulty in blazon usually indicates non-period style", and
that's the true underlying problem here.  I've never seen any
motif anything like that in period armory.  It would be returned
for non-period style.  I would hand them Foster (if I could just
find my copy) and have them look at real period coats of arms.
You can't just lay down any geometric pattern and expect it to be
period style and blazonable.

If they like chevrons, they may want "chevronelly".  It's hardly
used in the SCA.  Given its business, I'd suggest only simple
charges on it.

(It's not the same person who tried that op-art iris and lozengy
waves in the past few months, is it?)

Daniel de Lincolia
-- 
Tim McDaniel is tmcd at jump.net; if that fail,
    tmcd at us.ibm.com is my work account.
"To join the Clueless Club, send a followup to this message quoting everything
up to and including this sig!" -- Jukka.Korpela at hut.fi (Jukka Korpela)
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