Heraldic Beasts?

[Bugbear]

[MacLowlife]

Here in South Carolina, one family is known irreverently as the Wuzzas, because so many of their female descendants were said to always introduce themselves as "Mrs, Jones, ( Was a _____), because they did not wish to lose their association with that illustrious clan. As far as I know, none of them have gone in for hyphenation and only in the last few years have women here kept their maiden names in any noticeable numbers. I have never heard anyone actually say "Was a" with a straight face in these circumstances, but it is a fun and cute story. And my connection to the signer (and his armigerous ancestor) is a "wuzza" connection in that my grandmother came from that family.

I am one of nature's noblemen and nobody else's. You can't offend me, Cygnus, and I didn't notice anything offensive in what you wrote. Thanks for your useful comments.

[Cygnus]

Here in South Carolina, one family is known irreverently as the Wuzzas, because so many of their female descendants were said to always introduce themselves as "Mrs, Jones, ( Was a _____), because they did not wish to lose their association with that illustrious clan. As far as I know, none of them have gone in for hyphenation and only in the last few years have women here kept their maiden names in any noticeable numbers. I have never heard anyone actually say "Was a" with a straight face in these circumstances, but it is a fun and cute story. And my connection to the signer (and his armigerous ancestor) is a "wuzza" connection in that my grandmother came from that family.

I am one of nature's noblemen and nobody else's. You can't offend me, Cygnus, and I didn't notice anything offensive in what you wrote. Thanks for your useful comments.

Glad to hear no offense was taken! I've known a number of "wuzzas" myself... must have been a different branch, though.

As an aside: in researching some of the history of a branch of my family, I found that Ewen MacDonald of Glencoe's* daughter, Ellen, married a fellow by the name of Archibald Burns. To ensure that the arms and chiefship continued, Archibald took Ellen's surname and the arms and title continued to their son, Duncan. I've also heard of other instances of husbands taking the wife's surname or of one of the sons being given their mother's surname to keep a direct line of inheritance open.

*According to family history, Ewen was the younger brother to my fourth-great grandfather, Alexander. After a night of drinking, Ewen tricked Alexander into signing away his inheritance and kept the document secret until after their father's death when he assumed his father's title and estate, leaving Alexander all but penniless and unable to fight his brother's claim in court.

[Bugbear]

Oops, it was all one word without spaces, Mike, when I was looking at the post off line. That's weird... It seems to be fine in the second post.

I had gon through and put in the spaces.

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

"Heraldic Beasts" are those chimerical critters that are not found in nature. Yales, gryphons, bagwyns, and cockatrices are only a few of the more than fifty imaginary animals encountered in heraldry. These are usually blazoned in all their technicolour glory, ie: a cockatrice displayed gules, winged and crined vert, beaked, taloned and armed or.

"Ordinary Beasts", those that occur in nature-- lions, boars, deer, and giraffes, etc., as well as all manner of birds, fish, and insects-- are either blazoned "proper", meaning that they are painted as they appear in nature, or given a specific colour, ie: the "Red Lion" (a lion rampant gules) that occurs on the Royal Flag in Scotland.

While most crests (beasts or otherwise) are depicted on a torse of the livery colours of the armiger, hats and coronets are exempt from this rule. "Critters" are another sometime exemption when encountered on seals and signet rings, although they should properly be depicted on a torse.

[Cygnus]

MoR's post has got me thinking...

What about critters that are real but lived so distant from Europeans that they may as well have been "heraldic beasts"? Take for example the MacQueen crest - the "tyger" ermine only barely resembles an actual tiger at best. Under which category would it fall?

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

MoR's post has got me thinking...

What about critters that are real but lived so distant from Europeans that they may as well have been "heraldic beasts"? Take for example the MacQueen crest - the "tyger" ermine only barely resembles an actual tiger at best. Under which category would it fall?

The heraldic tyger (ermine or otherwise) is a mythical beast, originally derived from illustrations found medieval bestiaries, whereas a tiger proper would be the zoologically correct critter.

[JerseyLawyer]

The heraldic tyger (ermine or otherwise) is a mythical beast, originally derived from illustrations found medieval bestiaries, whereas a tiger proper would be the zoologically correct critter.

According to Fox-Davies, though, the spelling 'tiger' is also correct for the heraldic beast, which looks like a lion with a horn on its nose. Generally the zoological tiger is blazoned as "a bengal tiger". I think a tiger proper would simply be one in the natural colors, so "a bengal tiger proper" would be orange with black stripes.

There are plenty of other similar examples in heraldry. A seahorse is a marine beast with the body of an equine horse. What we generally think of as a seahorse is blazoned as a hippocampus. A heraldic leopard is merely a lion passant guardant (as in "the leopards of England"). A heraldic panther is a mystical beast with flames coming from its mouth and ears and blue and red spots.

Remember that most blazon is based on what medieval heralds thought certain beasts looked like. Hence, they can frequently bear little relation to what the creature in question conjures in modern minds.

[Bugbear]

* Zebra picture removed.

[Mark E.]

My input on this one...My family's crest has a boar with an arrow thru it, a shield with St. Andrew's cross, and in the spaces around the cross bars, hunting horns. Rumor has it the family was known as hunters, and the boar was symbolic of a kill that happened on a hunting outing where one of my folk kept a higher class individual from being gored. Dragons, griffons, lions, unicorns and the like seem to be part of the upper classes...One must look to the nature of the animal as well, to gauge it's symbolic attributes.