[ANSTHRLD] A Spurtle

[Coblaith Muimnech]

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
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