Mathghamhain – Page 26 – Techniques of Digital Heraldry

Device and Populace Badge for the Canton of Whyt Whey

Argent, an apple gules slipped and leaved proper within a laurel wreath vert, and an orle sable.

Earlier this year, I worked with other members of the Canton of Whyt Whey, our local SCA branch here in Manhattan, to design a new set of branch arms. We went through innumerable drafts and proposals before settling on a device which gained unanimous consent.

As with many medieval devices, these are “canting arms”, featuring the city’s namesake big apple, along with the required laurel wreath and an elegant black stripe.

Argent, an apple gules slipped and leaved proper within an orle sable.

We’ve also submitted a design for a populace badge, which features the same design elements without the branch-marker laurel wreath.

Both designs have been submitted and will hopefully be approved and registered next summer.

(The branch’s previous device will be retained as our “ancient and honorable arms,” and perhaps be deployed as a battle standard to strike fear into the hearts of our foes.)

Device and Name for Zoya the Orphan

Purpure, three Arabian lamps argent.

I worked with a local member of Østgarðr to refine their device design and document their preferred name for submission to the College of Heralds.

“Zoya” is a female baptismal name found in Paul Goldschmidt’s “Dictionary of Period Russian Names” as “Zoia”, attested to 1356 in “Levin, Eve. Calendar of Saints—12th-15th Century Novgorod” p. 20. In the original Cyrillic, this name would have been spelled Зоя (three letters, Ze-O-Ya), the last letter of which may be transliterated as Ia, Ja, or Ya. (Confirmed in personal communication with Paul Goldschmidt, who reports “Zoia, Zoja, or Zoya are all the exact same name.”)

The construction “given-name descriptive-byname” is found as a period construction for Russian names in the same “Dictionary of Period Russian Names,” which states “there are numerous cases of simply adding a common adjective onto a given name,” and gives “the Unkissed”, “the Unpredictable”, and “the Long-Nosed” as examples.

“The Orphan” is a descriptive byname rendered in English under the Lingua Anglica Allowance.

Emblazon for Clae Odea

Gules, in saltire a claymore and a rose slipped and leaved, and in chief a robin argent.

I recently emblazoned these proposed arms to be submitted for Clae Odea of the Shire Of Falcon’s Keep in Northshield.

(Sword and rose illustrations from Mistholme.)

Populace Badges

Many SCA branches register badges for use by their members, in order to allow people to indicate their association with the group without using the branch’s primary arms. I’ve gathered some guidelines and commentary about populace badges below for easy reference.

Restrictions on Display of Branch Arms

In the medieval period, according to Dame Zenobia Naphtali, “the Arms of a Kingdom properly were only used by the personal embodiments of the Kingdom, their King and Queen. Private individuals would not use the Kingdom Arms except in contexts making it absolutely clear that those Arms were used in reference to the King and Queen, not to themselves.”

Released and Returned Sea-horses of Østgarðr

The original branch arms of Østgarðr were registered in 1979, and there were a couple of failed attempts to change them prior to passage of the current device in 1984.

Per bend sinister purpure and Or, a seahorse rampant azure, crined, unguled and finned Or, orbed sable, gorged of a laurel wreath vert, grasping in its hooves a laurel wreath Or.

The branch’s first arms were registered in August 1979. (View submitted image.)

Originally submitted as “per bend sinister purpure and Or, a seahorse sejant azure, crined, finned, tailed and hoofed of the second, engorged of a laurel wreath proper,” during the 1979 “Heraldicon” effort to clear a two-year backlog of submissions the blazon was updated and the wreath being held in its hooves was added in order to satisfy the requirement for a prominent laurel wreath in each branch’s arms.

Heraldic Registrations of the Orders and Awards of Østgarðr

In addition to the primary branch armory, Østgarðr has also registered badges corresponding to several orders and awards of honor.

A natural sea-horse proper.

This badge was registered in June 1975. (View submitted image.)

The blazon was initially approved as “a seahorse (hippocampus) proper”; the phrasing was changed to “a natural sea-horse proper” at a later date.

This registration has been the subject of some discussion because the only record of the submission is monochrome and lacks tricking marks that would tell us which colors were to be used, and nobody knows for sure what color a “proper” natural seahorse is meant to be — real seahorses come in a variety of colors including brown, yellow, red, blue, green, and purple, as well as striped and multicolor patterns.

Heraldic Sea-horses of Østgarðr

Over the last forty-odd years, Østgarðr has registered several pieces of armory featuring a heraldic sea-horse, and I thought it would be useful to collect them all in one place for easy reference.

Argent, a sea-horse erect azure within a laurel wreath vert.

The branch’s current arms were registered in August 1984. (View submitted image.)

Note that although recent depictions often show the sea-horse’s front legs terminating in fins, the device that was submitted in 1984 has hooves, as do both of the related designs that follow.

Also note the lack of gold accents anywhere on the design; this sea-horse is simply blue, unlike the original 1979 device.

Youth Combat Badges

Registered heraldic devices and badges are subject to a fair amount of artistic variation and differing interpretations, but when you get to un-registered badges, things can get really out of hand.

The youth combat marshalate is a case in point, with at least five different badges in circulation, none of which have been registered.

The first two of these seem to be in widespread use, while the others only show up in solitary cases, presumably invented on the spot because someone couldn’t find an officially-registered badge.

A Digital Armory Toolbox

My freehand illustration skills are rudimentary at best, so I do all of my armorial design using a computer, and I figured I’d post a few notes about the software I use in hopes that it might be of use to others.

(I should note that I’m a Mac user, and wouldn’t even know where to start on recommendations for Windows.)

Tilting At “Arabian” Lamps

The image of Aladdin’s lamp is so well established that the appearance of actual oil lamps of the medieval Levant might come as a surprise: they are made of clay, and shaped more like a gravy boat than a teapot.

I stumbled over this while helping an Østgarðrian prepare an armory registration featuring an Arabian lamp and wandered down a fascinating rabbit hole of web research.

(SCA heralds with OSCAR commenting privileges may enjoy reading the repeated efforts of Bruce Draconarius of Mistholme to guide people towards using the archeologically-attested form of the lamp here, here, here, here, and here — occasionally overheated, but still an interesting example of the “historical education” tendency within the SCA.)