[Mid] November Heraldic Acceptances and Returns

Greetings,

The November Letter of Acceptances and Returns has just been published.
(Laurel letters are dated by the month the meetings are held in.) The
letter will soon be available at http://heraldry.sca.org/loar/ Here are
the acceptances and returns for the Middle Kingdom.

MIDDLE ACCEPTANCES November 2011 LoAR

Aaron Drummond. Device. Or, a drum between two bars wavy gules.
Commenters raised this issue of whether or not the combination of this
device with the surname Drummond was presumptuous given the important
non-SCA armory of Drummond, Earl of Perth, Or, three bars wavy gules. In
this device, the drum is the primary charge, and so the two devices do
not conflict. A single allusion has long been held to not be presumptuous.

Albrecht Kurze. Name and device. Per pale sable and gules, an oak leaf
and in chief three acorns argent.
Nice 13th century German name!

Ayreton, Barony of. Order name Order of Rians Star.
Originally submitted as The Order of Riáin’s Star, that name was changed
by kingdom to Order of Réalta Ríáin to make the name fully Gaelic. While
that solved the problem of the lingual mix, it created a new one: there
is no evidence for such a pattern of order names in Gaelic (in fact, the
only order name we know to have been recorded in Gaelic is the English
Order of the Garter).
The easiest solution is to make the name wholly English. Rian is the
Anglicized version of this name, dated to 1601. Following the pattern of
Saint Georges Shield, we can register this as Order of Rians Star. In
the process, we create a name far closer to the original submission.

Brighid Bhreathnach. Name (see RETURNS for device).

Duncan of the Middle. Holding name and device (see RETURNS for name).
Argent, in pale three fish bendwise contourny two and one
vert and a brown bear statant contourny proper.
Please advise the submitter to draw internal details on the bear, to aid
in its identification, and to draw the fish larger to aid in their
identification.
Submitted under the name Duncan Sinclair.

Eoin Drake. Name and device. Per chevron inverted purpure and Or, three
half-moon knives inverted counterchanged.
As documented, this name mixes Gaelic and English. However, Eoin is also
found in Anglicized Irish contexts, making the name wholly compatible
with English spellings.

Ghurban Arslan. Name and device. Argent, in pale a lion’s head cabossed
and a Russian orthodox cross gules.
Please advise the submitter to draw the charges larger to fill the
available space.

Gianna Vettori. Name and device. Per fess indented flory at the points
sable and argent.
Nice 15th century Italian name!
Nice device!

Gwindelin Odell. Name.
Gwindelin is the submitter’s legal given name.

Hallfrídr Throndardottir. Reblazon of badge. Sable, two fir branches
fructed in saltire and in chief an ounce’s head erased argent marked sable.
Blazoned when registered in July 1989 as Sable, in pale an ounce’s head
erased argent, marked sable, and two fir branches fructed argent, the
fir branches are more substantial than the ounce’s head and are in saltire.

Mariza de la Courete. Device. Purpure, on a saltire Or between three
dragonflies argent and an arming buckle Or a pomme.

Rickard of Rivenvale. Name change from Rickard of Gwyntarian.
Rivenvale is the registered name of an SCA branch.
His previous name, Rickard of Gwyntarian, is released.

Sashcha Turcitul. Name.
Submitted as Sashcha Turcitul, the name was changed by kingdom to
Shashcha Turcitul on the basis of the forms they could find. Sofya la
Rus cites a large number of spelling variants of the name, and argues
convincingly that Sashcha is within the range of spelling variants.
Therefore, we have restored the name to its submitted form.
This name mixes a Russian given name and a Romanian byname; this mix is
a step from period practice.

Sigmund Kittel. Device. Sable, a bear statant erect contourny and on a
chief rayonny argent a hunting horn gules between two crosses moline sable.

Sven Karlsson. Device. Gyronny arrondi sable and argent, a heart gules
sustained by a lion’s jambe issuant from base Or.
The use of a central charge on this depiction of gyronny arrondi, with
the upper corners of the field centered in a gyron, is a step from
period practice.

Tethion de Dol Ffynon. Name (see RETURNS for device).
The given name is dated to the 10th century; the byname is only
plausible after the 13th century. There is therefore a step from period
practice for temporal difference of more than 300 years.

Ynés de Jaen. Name.

MIDDLE RETURNS November 2011 LoAR

Brighid Bhreathnach. Device. Vert, a cross of Saint Brigid and on a
chief Or a grapevine vert.
This device is returned for a redraw, for violating section VII.7.a of
the Rules for Submissions which requires that "Elements must be
recognizable solely from their appearance." The vine depicted here has
leaves that do not match any grapevine that commenters were aware of; a
generic vine is an ivy vine, which the leaves here also do not match.
Please advise the submitter to redraw with a vine with recognizable
leaves of some sort.
There is a step from period practice for the use of a cross of Saint Brigid.

Duncan Sinclair. Name.
This name presumes a relationship with the registered Phillip MacDuncan
Sinclair; it can be seen as a claim to be his father. As such, this name
may not be registered without a letter of permission to presume from
Phillip. Alternately, he may add an element to distinguish himself from
the Duncan Sinclair who was Phillip’s father.
His device has been registered under the holding name Duncan of the Middle.

Eva Perron. Name and device. Argent, a hawk vert jessed and hooded sable
and on a chief vert a dexter hand bendwise and a sinister hand bendwise
sinister argent.
This name conflicts with the famous first lady of Argentina, Eva Peron.
While she was not a head of state, she is a quite famous individual
(made even more so by the musical and movie "Evita"). Therefore, her
name is important enough to protect. This device is returned for a
redraw. The hands here are neither quite fesswise nor bendwise and
bendwise sinister as blazoned. As their orientation cannot be clearly
blazoned, this is a violation of section VII.7.b of the Rules for
Submissions which requires that "Elements must be reconstructible in a
recognizable form from a competent blazon."

Iohannes vonWeisswald. Device. Azure, three pallets chevronelly argent
and sable, in chief four mullets of eight points argent.
This device is returned for a redraw. The pallets here are so thin as to
make it nearly impossible to tell that they are chevronelly and not
compony, thus blurring the line between the two. Since there is a CD
between those two partitions, that blurring is grounds for return for
violating section VIII.3 of the Rules for Submissions, which requires
that "Elements must be used in a design so as to preserve their
individual identifiability...Identifiable elements may be rendered
unidentifiable by significant reduction in size..."

Iohannes vonWeisswald. Badge. (Fieldless) A bear rampant contourny Or
standing atop an open scroll fesswise argent, maintaining
over its shoulder an arquebus fesswise and in its other paw a handgun
rest bendwise sinister gules.
This badge is returned for violating section VIII.4.a of the Rules for
Submissions which states "Overly pictorial designs may not be
registered." Returns for being overly pictorial are few and far between.
However, commenters overwhelmingly saw this badge as an attempt to
depict a bear doing the biathlon, a sport which is entirely modern.
While possible modern interpretations of an overall design are generally
disregarded if the design is otherwise period and not obtrusive, in this
case the combination of the attempt at using an open scroll to simulate
skis and the unfamiliar handgun rest used as a ski pole together bring
this design out of the realm of period style. If the open scroll were a
trimount, it would be far less remarkable.
This badge has other problems as well. Under current standards, the
arquebus and open scroll may be considered as sustained charges; if so,
this badge would violate the ban on so-called "slot machine" heraldry,
with three types of charges in the same group. The exact positioning of
the arquebus and the handgun rest are also difficult to describe, which
may run afoul of our reconstruction requirements; commenters also had
difficulty identifying the handgun rest, blazoned on the Letter of
Intent as an aiming rod. The scroll is difficult to identify as such in
this context. And finally, we should be aware of section VIII.1.a of the
Rules for Submission, which states "In no case should the number of
different tinctures or types of charges be so great as to eliminate the
visual impact of any single design element." It should be noted that the
bear itself is well drawn.

Tethion de Dol Ffynon. Device. Barry gules and argent, on a chief argent
three lion’s heads erased gules.
As the chief shares a tincture with the field, this device must also be
considered for conflict as a plain barry argent and gules field with the
lion’s heads in chief, as well as under the blazon Argent, three bars
gules and in chief three lion’s heads erasedgules. Unfortunately, this
lovely device is therefore in conflict in either case with the non-SCA
arms of Ancient Hungary, Barry argent and gules, which can also be
considered as Argent, three bars gules, with only one CD for adding the
lion’s heads.

-- 
Meister Konrad Mailander, Hauptmann der Rotenkompanie
Apprentice to Master Brusten de Bearsul OP, OL(Gaming)
Squire to Sir Gunther von Brandenburg
Si hoc obstat, dejectum sit - If it's in the way let it be knocked down
From:  Dale Niederhauser <konrad_at_netscape.com>
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