SCA - College of Arms
P.O. Box 742825
Dallas, TX 75374-2825
(214) 276-2129
[email protected]

April 1996

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

The April 1996 Laurel meeting was held on Saturday, April 20, 1996, and considered the following Letters of Intent: Caid (11/27); Middle (12/4); Middle (12/6); An Tir (12/10); Atlantia (12/10); West (12/18); Laurel (12/21); East (12/21); Outlands (12/26); and Caid (12/29). Original commentary on these LoIs must have been in the College's hands no later than February 28, 1996. Responses and rebuttals to commentary must have been in the College's hands no later than March 31, 1996.

The May 1996 Laurel meeting is scheduled for Saturday, May 18, 1996, and will consider the following Letters of Intent: Middle (11/7); Trefoil (1/2); Drachenwald (1/9); Drachenwald (1/10); Atenveldt (1/10); West (1/16); An Tir (1/18); Atlantia (1/21); East (1/25); Albion (1/28); Outlands (1/29); and Meridies (1/30). Original commentary on these LoIs must have been in the College's hands no later than March 31, 1996. Responses and rebuttals to commentary must have been in the College's hands no later than April 30, 1996.

The June 1996 Laurel meeting is scheduled for Saturday, June 8, 1996, and will consider the following Letters of Intent: Caid (2/2); Middle (2/7); An Tir (2/13); West (2/16); and East (2/21). Two Letters of Intent will be considered at the Laurel roadshow meeting on Sunday, June 23, 1996, at the Known World Heraldic Symposium: Outlands (2/6) and Atlantia (2/11). Original commentary on these LoIs must have been in the College's hands no later than April 30, 1996. Responses and rebuttals to commentary must be in the College's hands no later than May 31, 1996.

The July 1996 Laurel meeting is scheduled for Sunday, July 14, 1996, and will consider the following Letters of Intent: Ansteorra (February 29 but postmarked March 8), Atlantia (March 10), Middle (March 5), Drachenwald (February 21), An Tir (March 16), Atenveldt (March 20), West (March 20), Caid (March 24) and Calontir (March 30). Original commentary on these LoIs must be in the College's hands no later than May 31, 1996. Responses and rebuttals to commentary must be in the College's hands no later than June 30, 1996.

The August 1996 Laurel meeting is scheduled for Sunday, August 25, 1996, and will consider the following Letters of Intent: An Tir (April 11), Drachenwald (March 24), East (April 18), Atlantia (April 14), West (April 24), and Caid (April 5). There will be a Laurel roadshow meeting at Pennsic on Thursday, August 16. Original commentary on these LoIs must be in the College's hands no later than June 30, 1996. Responses and rebuttals to commentary must be in the College's hands no later than July 31, 1996.

Not all Letters of Intent may be considered when they are originally scheduled on this Cover Letter. Date of mailing of the LoI, date of receipt of the Laurel packet, or other factors may delay consideration of certain Letters of Intent. Additionally, not all Letters of Intent received have been scheduled because the administrative requirements (receipt of the forms packet, receipt of the necessary fees, etc.) have not yet been met.

Black Dove (Meridies) has a new address. It is: 1409 Chelsea Lane, Richland, MS 39218-9475.

Saker (Calontir) has moved. Her new address is: 356 North 34th Street, Kansas City, KS 66102

Beginning the April 27, Vesper (West) is ... well, I hesitate to use the word "retiring", because (1) she'll still have the Morsulus office taking up vast quantities of space in the house, and (2) "retire" is not something one does with an infant. Anyway, the office will be changing hands. The new Vesper is the current Compline Herald, Krysta of Starfall, who is already on the Roster. Please add her to the mailing list as Vesper.

The office of Rouge Scarpe (Middle) is changing. The new Rouge Scarpe will be Emrys Eustace (Joe Marfice), 233 Perrine Street, Dayton, OH 45410; (513) 222-2330; [email protected]. Please add him to the Roster and mailing list.

Enclosed with this LoAR is a copy of the most recent Roster. Please double-check your files to make sure that you have made all the recent corrections to the mailing list.

A couple of people have asked to whom the commentary on various letters of intent should be going. The answer is, of course, that the "cut and paste" version of commentary (whether hard copy or electronic) on LoIs which I will be considering should be sent to me, and the "cut and paste" version of commentary on LoIs which Mistress Jaelle will be considering should be sent to her. (I realize that for some of you, this may mean that you will be "doubling up" on the diskettes you send out. On the other hand, even in many of those cases, if you have e-mail access, I am entirely happy to receive commentary by e-mail (text files, please!), and I suspect that Mistress Jaelle is, too.) Until the office changes hands at the Symposium at the end of June, the file copy of Letters of Comment should still be sent to me.

I would like to remind the College of three things:

a: It makes my job a lot easier if you send me letters of intent or commentary on disk. I use WordPerfect 5.1, but I can read just about anything.

b: If you send me an e-mail LoC, you still have to mail me a hardcopy of it.

c: If you do not get me the Laurel package in a timely fashion, your letter will be postponed a month. For those of you with e-mail, when I get your package, I will send you an e-mail letter you know.

Same Tune, Umpteenth Verse. According to an LoI, 'Johnston, page 192, has an entry for Glean Chomair under the heading Glencoe dated 1343.' In fact the entry reads as follows (with one irrelevant footnote deleted):

(The missing right parenthesis is missing in the original.) Plainly there is no entry for Glean Chomair; such a form does not even appear in the entry. Johnston's suggestion that the 1343 form Glenchomure is an English version of what is in modern Gaelic Gleann a' Chomair is very reasonable, but it's far from what is claimed in the LoI, namely, a 1343 citation for the form Glean Chomair. This sort of exaggeration of the evidence suggests either extreme carelessness, a lack of concern for the facts, or a deliberate attempt to mislead; none of these is acceptable.

Ian-ie, Meenie, Minie, Moe. It seems increasingly doubtful that English Ian is a period form. (The status of Gaelic Iain is less clear.) Black has relevant information in his articles on Macaneduff, Macanemoyll, Macian, Mackain, Mackean, and Iain, in his introduction, and doubtless elsewhere as well. In these we find Mackaneduff 1498 'son of black John'; here the John element is the part spelled ane. In 1559 we find the same spelling in M'Anevoill 'son of bald John'. Mackain and Mackean are forms of Macian; some actual citations are McAan and McAyn 1519, M'Ean 1538, M'Kaine 1601, M'Kane 1480, Makkaane 1570, and McKeane 1600. Finally, Black notes that Iain replaced an older Eoin but unfortunately does not say when this occurred. The English spellings suggest a variety of pronunciations ranging from 'ay-un' to '(y)ahn', but not modern 'EE-un'. Whatever the pronunciation, however, it appears that the usual English spellings were Ean and Ane when the name wasn't simply replaced by John. (This last seems to have been usual in the case of given names.) On the available evidence, Ian doesn't rate the benefit of the doubt, but much of the evidence is fairly indirect; can anyone add to it?

Not Another 'SCA-Compatible' Name. According to Harpy, Myrddin is a unique legendary name. Henceforth it will not be acceptable (unless, of course, evidence of actual period use can be found).

The Legal Name Allowance. Please look at the registration of Bryn Bobydd (Atlantia) for a brief but important discussion of intrusiveness in connection with the Legal Name Allowance.

No Russian Grandmothers? This month we have registered two three-generation Russian names, each with a patronymic and a 'grand-metronymic', Aleksandr Mikhail Evgenevich Sviatoslavin vnuk and Nataliia Anastasiia Evgenova Sviatoslavina vnuchka (both East). According to Shield, Russian patronymics served primarily to prove inheritance, which passed through the male line. Given the extremely low status of women in period Russia, it is hard indeed to imagine circumstances in which anyone would bother to record the identity of someone's grandmother, especially when the father was known. Consequently, in his view these names amount to historical revisionism rather than historical re-creation. We would therefore be very hesitant to register another Russian name containing a 'grand-metronymic' without actual documentation for such a form. However, this limitation on period practice is somewhat different from the absence of double given names in Irish, say. The latter is a general feature of period Irish naming; the present limitation, on the other hand, is entirely a consequence of social structure. 'Grand-patronymics' are attested, and essentially the same grammatical machinery is available for the formation of 'grand-metronymics'. We are therefore not quite banning this construction outright; rather, we solicit commentary on the desirability of doing so.

On Clan Names. Two decisions this month raised questions of actual Gaelic usage in respect of clan names. In the first, the registration of Clan MacKenzie of Ben Duff to Eoin Mac Cainnigh (An Tir), we had to consider what a Gaelic form of the name would look like (though we ended up registering the English form). It very quickly became apparent that an English Clan MacKenzie would be a Gaelic Clann Chainnigh, literally the 'clan of Cainnech'; the mac is dropped. More generally, a Gaelic clan name takes the form Clann <aspirated genitive case of personal name>; household names of this type should therefore omit the mac in Gaelic, though it appears to be perfectly acceptable in the English equivalents of such names.

The other matter came up in the registration of the name Óengus mac Domnaill Glinne Chomair (Atlantia), a Gaelic name that could be translated 'Angus son of Donald of Glencoe'. As it happens, there is a clan known in English as MacDonald of Glencoe, and it was suggested that the combination of patronymic and locative was for that reason a claim to chieftainship of the clan. However, Gaelic usage in such matters can be surprising: it turns out that the chief is in Gaelic simply MacIain (after the clan's progenitor). Thus, the submitted bynames are in Gaelic simply descriptive, meaning only what they seem to say. It appears that this example is not unique, so there may be a number of superficially disallowed combinations that in Gaelic are not at all presumptuous; the facts will have to be ascertained on a case-by-case basis.

It further appears that quite possibly even Angus MacDonald of Glencoe ought to be acceptable. The English equivalent of the Gaelic MacIain seems to be MacIa(i)n of Glencoe or MacDonald of Glencoe, sans Christian name; Angus MacDonald of Glencoe, on the other hand, appears to be simply 'Angus MacDonald who is from Glencoe'. We therefore solicit research on this question.

Just as I was starting to worry that we weren't going to get any bids for the 1997 Known World Heraldic Symposium, what should appear in my mailbox but .... Attached to this Cover Letter, therefore, is a synopsis of the bid to host the 1997 KWHS received from the Barony of Thescorre (Rochester, NY). It has been edited for space considerations, but I believe I have retained all of the major points and most of the minor ones which they present. Please read it over carefully.

If more bids are received before the deadline, I will be certain to let you know. The goal is to allow the members of the College time to consider the bids received and to make a decision about the site of the 1997 KWHS at the 1996 KWHS at the end of June.

Speaking of this year's Symposium, also enclosed with this Cover Letter is another flyer with information on the 1996 Known World Heraldic Symposium to be held in Montgomery, Alabama June 22-23, 1996. There is still time for those of you with an interest in attending to go. All of the necessary registration and hotel reservation information is on the enclosed flyer. Additionally, they are still actively seeking people to teach classes at the Symposium. If you have a class which might be of interest to those interested in heraldry, onomastics, or the scribal arts, please be sure to contact the autocrat and offer to present it at this year's Symposium.

I have carefully read and considered all of the commentary on this issue, and I continue to find it ludicrous that some of us in the College expect people to know (or know enough to know where to look up) the default postures of pine cones (which in the SCA is the opposite of mundane defaults) and pheons/broadarrows (which in the SCA follows the English default, which is the opposite of the Continental default), and others even more obscure, yet consistently blazon lions in their default posture as rampant, eagles in their default posture as displayed, and dragons in their default posture as segreant, when it is exactly these postures which are probably the best-known in heraldry, in and out of the SCA. Beginning with this LoAR, then, if a lion is rampant, it is blazoned a lion; if an eagle is displayed, it is blazoned an eagle; and if a dragon is segreant, it is blazoned a dragon. I cannot see that not specifically blazoning the posture for these creatures when they are in their common defaults will cause anyone any hardship. If our heralds and scribes can learn that a sword is palewise, point to chief by default, and that a pheon is palewise, point to base, I cannot see that their learning that a lion is rampant is going to cause them any additional difficulty or confusion. These are, after all (as one commenter pointed out), "the default postures of the three most well known heraldic animals, which are not obscure at all."

Morsulus has pointed out a typo in the last FTPW cover letter announcement, which read:

Morsulus' comment was: "IS SO!"

Naturally, the announcement should have read: The 2nd Edition of Paul Wickenden of Thanet's Period Russian Names, a major expansion of the first edition, is now available for US$17.

Enclosed also with this LoAR is the most recent price list from FTPW. As always, please copy and distribute as widely as possible to any and all people who might be interested in any of the works available.

Do you REALLY want to have the College of Arms process you into its mechanical record-keeper with your mundane name spelled backwards? Please resubmit. (Karina of the Far West, 30 Jun 79 125], p. 68)

We will, of course, retain our chief peculiarity: that we do not allow conflict with names or arms of fictional persons, especially in the science fiction and fantasy field. One of the functions of the Kingdom (and now Principality) heralds is to point out such names when they are applied for; I don't have time to keep up with everything published, nor can I remember all I to read. (Karina of the Far West, 10 Jan 78 [17], p. 2)

Do not use the soubriquet Halfling unless you are one. 4'5" is generally considered the maximum height. (Karina of the Far West, 20 Aug 76 [7], p 3)

Five brownie points. This is classic heraldry at its best. Wilhelm von Schlüssel, LoAR 20 October 1980 [27], p. 2

In the case of mundane coats of arms consisting of a single-tinctured field and a single-tinctured ordinary, only one full point of difference is needed, as each combination is held by many families and so you cannot be said to be a cadet branch of any one family. The addition of a single secondary charge is not a full point of difference. The addition of several secondary charges, or the addition of a single major charge overall (which visually changes the ordinary from the primary charge to a secondary charge) is a full point and is sufficient. Wilhelm von Schlüssel, LoAR 15 May 1980 [17], p. 5

As a reward for their excellent documentation on [charge], I am granting a specific exception to the rule to N. Wilhelm von Schlüssel, LoAR 20 October 1980 [27], p. 2

Hereafter suns and estoiles shall have rays and mullets will have points. Wilhelm von Schlüssel, LoAR 29 December 1980 [32], p. 3 [Begging the question, of course, of what they had before this ruling. J Da'ud]

[Sable, gurges Or.] The gurges is a charge. This is because you have drawn the gurges so that all three corners of the escutcheon are sable. If you draw it so that the base point is Or then it will not be possible to say which is the field and which is the spiral. Then you would have a divided field gurges sable and Or, and you would no longer have color on color. This is similar to the problem of barry of an odd number. Wilhelm von Schlüssel, LoAR 13 February 1980 [11], p. 6 [Boy, am I glad we decided that a gurges is a charge! Da'ud]

As a member of the College of Arms, you should observe spelling accuracy. Wilhelm von Schlüssel, LoAR 24 May 1982 [70], p. 5

The rules of the College are those which I recently published and any which I subsequently proclaim. The acceptance of a submission does not in itself constitute a precedent. The College is not bound by anything that it has done or not done in the past, or by anything that it has passed or not passed in the past. It is bound by its published rules and decisions. If a specific charge or usage has been rejected in the past and there has been nothing since then to change that stance then that charge or usage is still rejected. If you are unsure about any change or usage, ask me for an opinion. Wilhelm von Schlüssel, Cover Letter 21 July 1980 [20], p. 2

 Until next month, pray believe that I am, and remain,

Your faithful servant,




Da'ud ibn Auda
Laurel King of Arms