[ANSTHRLD] A Spurtle

Joseph Percer jpercer at gmail.com
Sun Oct 17 21:58:05 PDT 2010


I would agree that there generally would seem to be a high risk of
identifiability with such a charge. This was the submitter's
desire from some time ago (not sure how long) that he was asking me
about. I'm going to have to see if I can't nudge him in the direction
of some more period heraldic charges and styles in general. I believe
he found the spurtle by flipping through a book of charges at a
consult
table some time ago (not sure if it was the pic dic or something
else). A most dangerous way to do heraldry in my opinion.

Jayme

On Sun, Oct 17, 2010 at 11:41 PM, Coblaith Muimnech
<Coblaith at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> Jayme wrote:
>>
>> I have a gentleman who is just moving into Seawinds, who wants to register
>> a spurtle.. . .
>
>> Anybody have any insight on whether this is going to require a
>> documentation of it's use in period heraldry to register or no?
>
> Danihel de Lindo Colonia
>>
>> . . .if you can document period depictions in such a way that it's
>> blazonable (if you see a picture and know of the item, you'll say "spurtle")
>> and reproducable (to oversimplify, if you see "spurtle" in a blazon, you'll
>> draw something like someone else's notion of
>> "spurtle"), then it will not require documentation of its use in period
>> heraldry.
>
> The Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue, s.n. "Spurtill, Spurtle"
> <http://www.dsl.ac.uk/getent4.php?plen=924&startset=58390491&dtext=dost>,
> offers two late-16th-century quotes containing "spurtill" and explains that
> the term derives from a late Middle English or Early Modern English word
> related to "spatula".  The entry makes it clear that there was some sort of
> cooking instrument that went by that name in period, but gives the
> impression that it probably wasn't cylindrical, like the typical modern
> spurtle, but. . .well, spatulate.     So, probably not what your client's
> picturing, and problematic from a "blazonability" perspective, since most
> readers would likely interpret "spurtle" as "cylindrical potstick".
>
> That said, whether period spurtles turn out to have been spatulate,
> cylindrical, or both, I'd be concerned about identifiability.  How would you
> draw one so that it didn't look like a dagger, a sword beater, or a bourdon?
>
>
> Coblaith Muimnech
> <mailto:Coblaith at sbcglobal.net>
> <http://coblaith.net>
>
>
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-- 
Joseph M. Percer, AAS, LP



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