[ANSTHRLD] Device question (please bare with me)

[Tim McDaniel]

On Thu, 21 Apr 2011, charles armitage <charlesarmitage at yahoo.com>
wrote:
> Can a charge be "set a blaze" or on fire?

There are a few cases, but I wonder about recognizability.  Other than
naturally flaming charges (candles, beacons, grenades, phoenices,
thunderbolts, ...), I don't recall seeing them in period armory.

> If I were to call it a falcon

It is possible to have something returned for blurring the line
between two charges that have a difference.  For example, a
"unicornate horse" is returned for blurring the distinction between a
horse and a unicorn.  So depending on the depiction, I wildly guess
that there might be a return if it looks too much like a phoenix.

I want to echo Emma's advice:

> I strongly recommend browsing through the links at
> http://coblaith.net/Heraldry/Armorials/default.html. Coblaith has
> organized that page by region, and gives a sample image or two from
> the book. I believe the vast majority are scanned books over at the
> Bavarian State Library. It's just fantastic to browse through.

Coming up with a neat idea and then seeing if it can be justified in
heraldry is like being hungry, and driving to a random street corner
and seeing if there happens to be a restaurant there.

I strongly suggest looking at period designs and seeing the sorts of
thigs they did and did not do.  Maybe with an armory herald beside you
(flipping thru a priunted copy of Foster's, say) to point out
patterns: "there's more of the three identical charges two and one
... they used stripy fields a lot more than we do ... another eagle.
Note that, when you have a bird, 80% of the time it's an eagle
displayed.  There are a few others, but they're ravens close, owls
close guardant, martlets close, a very few swans rousant ..."

Danielis Lindum Colonia
-- 
Tim McDaniel, tmcd at panix.com