[ANSTHRLD] Fur or Color with a semy?

Tim McDaniel tmcd at panix.com
Mon Jan 19 11:23:41 PST 2009


Engenulf, what's the conflict you're trying to avoid?

On Mon, 19 Jan 2009, Darin Herndon <darin.herndon at chk.com> wrote:
> remembering that the ermine spots should be evenly distributed and
> not "moved" to avoid touching the stag

Not so.  As Teceangl put it succinctly in an An Tir Internal Letter of
Intent <http://www.antirheralds.org/IL/2002/Mar02atil.html>):

     There are two different schools of semy arrangement, as well.  One
     is what I call "gift wrap" or "wallpaper" where the design is
     regular throughout the armory and overlain by all the other
     charges, often cutting off under the edge of other charges and at
     the edge of the field.  The other is lain down after the other
     charges, so that random parts of the semy group appear in
     opportune spaces on the field.  Either is equally valid.

I've heard of two variants of the latter:

- the strewn charges or ermine spots avoid the charges but not the
   edge of the shield, so they are cut off by the shield edge
- the strewn charges or ermine spots avoid the charges AND     the
   edge of the shield, so they are all kept intact.

In this case, I would suggest that the ermine spots ought to be drawn
after the stag is drawn and avoiding it, to keep it from looking like
the stag is shedding badly or being shot.

The wallpaper form works nicely under simple geometric charges.

> If the lozenge is actually fully on the stag (a tertiary), then I
> would blazon as:  Azure ermined Or, on a stag trippant argent a
> lozenge gules.

That's actually not so bad a design in period terms.  Any ermined
tincture other than ermine was at best very rare in period (I'd love
to know frequencies), but stags are dead common, lozenges not unduly
so, and having one charge on the shoulder or whatever is decent in
period terms too.

I'd suggest a mullet or escallop as being even more common in period
style, but a lozenge works too.  And addition of a charge on a charge,
when compared to an uncharged charge, is a CD.  (If both charges are
charged, it gets more complicated.)

Danihel de Lindecolina
-- 
Tim McDaniel, tmcd at panix.com



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