Heraldic Registrations of the Canton of Brokenbridge

Brokenbridge is Østgarđr’s youngest canton, corresponding to Brooklyn, or King’s County.

Canton of Brokenbridge

The canton’s name was submitted in March 2006, and accepted in September.

The name is believed to reference one of the canton’s most iconic landmarks, the Brooklyn Bridge.

The documentation provides Old English sources for the two name elements:

Broken – from OE brocen “broken, broken up, uneven” (A.H. Smith, English Place-Name Elements A-IW) p. 52. Ex. Brokenborough (Brochenborge 1086), from Ekwall p. 68.

Bridge – from OE brycg “a bridge.” (see A.H. Smith above, p. 54). Ex. – Tonbridge (Tonebridge, 1086), Stalbridge (Staplebrig, 1086) from Ekwall, pp. 477 & 436.

(A similar branch name, the Bailiwick of Broken Bridges, was registered in August 1984 with the note that “Brokenbridge would be a more period form,” but was then released in December 1989 along with many other defunct branch names of the East.)

Vert semy of bees Or marked sable, on a pale argent in pale a coney rampant and a laurel wreath vert.

The canton’s arms were submitted in April 2006, and forwarded to the Society level in May, but then pended in September and not accepted until April of 2007. The pend was due to a confusion about the color of the bees’ wings: the submission form sent to Laurel blazoned them as “bees proper” but displayed bees with wings Or. (In the Society, bees proper have wings argent, body Or, with the abdomen marked with sable stripes.)

Curiously, the image that was uploaded to OSCAR didn’t match the version sent to Laurel — they both started from the same outline image, but the version on OSCAR had been colored differently, showing argent wings and four sable stripes rather than three. Because the image in OSCAR did depict bees proper, the issue was not flagged in commentary prior to reaching Laurel, at which point the September 2006 pend letter pointed out that the picture on the submission form they had received did not match the proposed blazon. The April 2007 LoAR modified the blazon to match the original submission image, “bees Or marked sable,” and accepted it for registration.

The arms are said to contain a rebus for another of the canton’s landmarks: the pale containing the coney can be read as “Coney Aisle,” or Coney Island. (I’ve also heard that the pairing of bees and rabbit provide a reference to “Bugs Bunny,” although I don’t know what connection that has to the canton.)