Unto the members of the College of Arms and all others who may read this missive does Shayk Da'ud ibn Auda, Laurel King of Arms, send Greetings!

The June Laurel meeting was held on Saturday, June 11, 1994, and considered the following letters of intent: Outlands (1/25), Middle (2/9), Drachenwald (2/10), Atlantia (2/11), Outlands (2/17), Calontir (2/19), East (2/24), and Meridies (2/25). The LoIs from West (2/7) and An Tir (2/17) were considered at a "roadshow" meeting held at the Known World Heraldic Symposium in Orlando on Sunday, June 26, 1994. Responses and rebuttals to commentary should have been in the College's hands no later than May 31, 1994.

The July Laurel meeting is scheduled for Saturday, July 9, 1994, to consider the following letters of intent: Ansteorra (3/1), West (3/14), Caid (3/15), Outlands (3/20), Middle (3/22), An Tir (3/25), Calontir (3/26), and Atlantia (3/28). Original commentary on these LoIs should have been in the College's hands no later than May 31, 1994. Responses and rebuttals to commentary should have been in the College's hands no later than June 30, 1994.

The August Laurel meeting is scheduled for Saturday, August 13, 1994, to consider the following letters of intent: Drachenwald (4/10), West (4/11), East (4/12), Calontir (4/16), An Tir (4/20), Outlands (4/20), Atlantia (4/21), Trimaris (4/25), Meridies (4/26), and Caid (4/27). Original commentary on these LoIs should have been in the College's hands no later than June 30, 1994. Responses and rebuttals to commentary must be in the College's hands no later than July 31, 1994.

The September Laurel meeting is tenatively scheduled for Saturday, September 10, 1994, to consider the following Letters of Intent: Atenveldt (3/31, mailed 5/4), East (5/3), West (5/20), Outlands (5/20), Caid (5/21), Calontir (5/21), Atlantia (5/22), An Tir (5/25), and Ansteorra (5/25). Original commentary on these LoIs must be in the College's hands no later than July 31, 1994. Responses and rebuttals to commentary must be in the College's hands no later than August 31, 1994.

Not all Letters of Intent may be considered when they are scheduled on this Cover Letter. Date of mailing of the LoI and date of receipt of the Laurel packet may delay consideration of certain Letters of Intent.

ROSTER CHANGES AND CORRECTIONS

A new roster including all the changes below plus those made in recent months is enclosed.

Please add the following to your roster and mailing list as a commenter on Laurel staff: Clarion Herald, Irene von Schmetterling (Wendy Chadwick), 9519 South Carls Drive, Plainfield, IL 60544-9762; (708) 904-0034.

Harpy's (West) name change was registered in this LoAR. (Was there ever any doubt?) Her newly registered name is Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn.

Targe Herald (Middle) has a new address and phone number. They are: 98070 North Frontage Road, Unit #201, Clarendon Hills, IL 60514; (708) 325-2022.

Aten asks that you add the following individuals to the Mailing List:

Corona Herald: Petruccio de Catalonia (Pat Cuccurello), 1714 West Coolidge Street, Phoenix, AZ 85015; (602) 264-6945. (He was Abacus Herald.)

Solar Herald: Kristoff McLain Cameron (Chris Kurtz), 12601 North 34th Street, Phoenix, AZ 85032; (602) 971-3125. (The former Solar Herald, Angela Sara Maria Diaz de Valdes, may be removed from the Roster.)

Aten asks that the following individuals be added to the Roster:

Twin Palms Pursuivant: Severian the Northumbrian (Bard Kinser), 8144 North 33rd Avenue #261, Phoenix, AZ 85051; (602) 841-9057 [Not on Mailing List]

Staff herald: Raymond Carder the Sea Rover (Charles Carder), 2409 West Orangewood #G, Phoenix, AZ 85021; [Not on Mailing List]

Staff herald: Mairi Broder (Mary Hysong), Box 621, Claypool, AZ 85532; (602) 473-3245 [Not on Mailing List]

Staff herald: Rhianwen Morgaine ferch Aelhearn (Toni Witherspoon), 88 West 820 South, Apt. 2, Cedar City, UT 84720; [Not on Mailing List]

Please remove Golden Wing Herald from your Mailing List and Roster.

Rouge Scarpe (Middle) has a new telephone number. It is (810) 658-8009.

Chevron Herald (Caid) has a new address a telephone number. It is 2112 West Palais Road, Anaheim, CA 92804-5432; (714) 490-0260.

Please remove the following from the mailing list for non-commentary:

Actuarius (Ansteorra)

Orle (Ansteorra)

Silver Buccle (East)

Green Mantle (Middle)

NEW TITLE AVAILABLE (or, < musical notes > There Is Nothing Like a ... < musical notes > [Nah, that one's too obvious a target!])

The title Dame is now available as an alternate to Mistress for any female members of the Laurels, Pelicans, or Chivalry who wishes to use it. It had previously been reserved for female knights, but since every female knight so far has preferred to use Sir, it was felt that this strict a limitation was no longer necessary.

BANNING STUFF, PART III

As with the name Amber, discussed in the Cover Letter with the March 1994 LoAR, our prior registrations of Cedric appear to have been based on the supposition that there was an OE prototheme Ced-, which there does not appear to be, though it was a reasonable enough supposition on the basis of the evidence then available. Such supposition appears to have been superseded by further research. (As for Cedrych, (Gruffudd, 21) refers it to Ceidrych, which '[c]ould be a form of "Caradog" but is the name of a river in Carmarthenshire. (Bartrum, 149) has a Keidyrch, but no Ceidrych.) As a consequence, unless and until new research appears giving better historical support to the name, after the September 1994 Laurel meeting we will no longer register Cedric.

KNOWN WORLD HERALDIC SYMPOSIUM, PART I

Well the 1994 Known World Heraldic Symposium is over. For those of you in attendance, you know how much fun you had and how much you learned. For those of you who were unable to make it, we missed you and hope that you will be able to attend the next one. I think we owe a very large round of thanks to the autocrat (and his wife) for not only putting it all together, but doing so with World Cup reducing his options when problems arose. All in all, I think the event went very well.

KNOWN WORLD HERALDIC SYMPOSIUM, PART II

Well, it was very, very close. It was really great to have a number of very good bids to host the 1995 Known World Heraldic Symposium. However, like in Highlander, "there can be only one". The 1995 KWHS will be held in Denver, Colorado. Expect updates on this from the Outlands soon.

I would like to thank the groups in Tucson, Arizona and Calgary, Alberta for their bids. All of the bids were very strong, and the outlines presented to the College all very attractive.

KNOWN WORLD HERALDIC SYMPOSIUM, PART III

It is time to open the bidding for hosting the 1996 Known World Heraldic Symposium. I expect that we will, as this year, take bids through April 1995, and make an announcement at the 1995 KWHS in Denver. If you are in a group considering bidding, or know of such a group, tell them that it's time to start putting together a proposal. As ever, if you (or they) have any questions, I have no doubt that the autocrats of any of the previous symposia (including myself) would be happy to assist.

CORPORATE JOB POSITION COMING AVAILABLE

Although I have not at this time made a firm decision as to whether to seek another year as Laurel King of Arms, my current warrant does expire at the end of June 1995. As a consequence, it is time now to start thinking about the succession of this office, and to open applications. Assuming no drastic changes in circumstances, applications will be accepted until December 1, 1994, so that a decision regarding succession may be made at the January 1995 meeting of the Board of Directors. Applications should be sent to the Heralds Ombudsman on the Board of Directors, A.J. Riviezzo, with a copy to Laurel.

DOCUMENTATION (or, Who says so?)

Two non-English submissions considered in this month's LoAR spurred a moderate amount of discussion about "folk tradition" and "common knowledge" as documentation. While the College does not exactly reject folk tradition and common knowledge, as Crescent noted, "in some circles it's common knowledge that Elvis is alive, Washington threw a dollar across the Potomac, and UFOs routinely abduct people." Hence the request for more informatino, for hard documentation. It is not that the College believes that these people are lying; merely that more information than a simple assertion is necessary to adequately evaluate a submission. An important principle in what we do is that all evidence is available to all of the College for evaluation. It is not at all unreasonable for submitters, and submitting heralds, to be expected to justify their assertions. We are entirely willing to accept local sources which are not generally available to us. We are also willing to accept the research of local historical societies, so long as the product of their research is reasonable. Evidence from folk tradition is in many cases not sufficiently substantiated to be admissible. At the very least it is not, in and of itself, persuasive. Similarly, evidence from pamphlets produced by local chambers of commerce and other local organizations is generally only a bit better than evidence from family histories. Only if the assertions therein are inherently plausible are they likely to be convincing, and even then it would be nice to see the entire publication in order to form an opinion about its reliability.

Most of us wouldn't trust the average English-speaker to get Early Modern English correct (witness the number of people who have trouble understanding Shakespeare!); anything earlier is even more unlikely. And there is no reason to believe that English is peculiar in this. We have no more cause to trust a modern German speaker's knowledge of Middle High German than to trust a modern English speaker's knowledge of Middle English. Native speakers of English submitting English names frequently 'know' that they are correct -- even when they are altogether wrong. Without sufficient information with which to judge the reliability of the source, or the background and training of the speaker, we cannot assume any special knowledge about period naming practice or grammar. When the documentation boils down to "because I said so", it cannot be accepted on its face.

SOURCES, SOURCES (Who's got the sources?)

Enclosed with this month's cover letter is the latest price list (already out of date -- he's adding at least one item that I know of) from Free Trumpet Press West.

Also enclosed is an order form for Name Construction in Medieval Japan by Solveig Throndardottir, which some of you may find of interest. This is an expansion of her earlier 68 page work of the same title which was available in limited quantities at the 1993 KWHS (now humorously referred to as "the Flyer"; the current edition, of approximately 300 pages, is referred to as "the Pampthlet").

MISCELLANY

"As I stand corrected by Mary Tyrrall and 'enfiling' has taken on the new meaning of 'encircling' rather than 'encircled by' then just what are the Hralds playing at? Future heraldists and historians will now need to know the exact date of this change so that this can be checked against the illustration in the Latters Patent (not always readily available). Otherwise there are going to be a lot of confused artists and herald painters out there as they try to make sense of the balzon and try to decipher when to use the active 'enfiling' or the passive 'enfiled by'.

"Surely blazon is supposed to clarify - not obfuscate?"

Dr. Bernard Juby, in a letter in The Heraldry Gazette, March 1994, p. 8

Until next month, I remain, as ever,

Your faithful servant,

Da'ud ibn Auda

Laurel King of Arms