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The LIAR ~ First Public Appearance |
DIMIDIATION The most common method of marshalling two coats of arms on a single
shield is impalement, most often seen when the separate arms of
a husband and wife appear together, but in the earliest days of
heraldry it was not unusual to find that the arms of each had
been halved vertically and the husband's dexter half then joined
to his wife's sinister half. This was known as dimidiation. The
arms on the right here show that the result could sometimes appear
to join unsuitable charges as one, and it may be noted that the
arms of Great Yarmouth (a port in Eastern England) join the Lions
of England to the tails of herrings to produce three "merlions". It may perhaps be unnecessary to add the caution that these animals
must on no account be approached. They may look comparatively
harmless, but they are in fact extremely political and unbelievably
treacherous. Formed from the front half of the LIon and the rear
half of the boAR the beast is known as a LIAR and is readily recognised
as such by its forked tongue. They are most dangerous when presidential
or parliamentary elections are imminent. Verbum sat sapienti.
In the Heraldry section the Editor recently completed for a major
encyclopaedia he briefly explained the subject of dimidiation
and mentioned as an example the arms of the Cinque Ports (above),
describing them as lions joined to boats. The proofs were returned
to him with this queried, the copy editor very reasonably having
wondered whether the "boat" might be a misprint for "boar". This
in turn prompted the Editor to decide that although he personally
had never seen an animal that was half lion and half boar, and
indeed was unsure he'd even heard of one, there were bound to
be one of two lurking somewhere. Accordingly, he asked the artists
to illustrate their probable appearance, much as police artists
do, so that any readers who might see one would recognise it for
what it is.
The Martlet featured in Curiosity Corner ~ 1
The Gryphon (of Griffin) featured in Curiosity Corner ~ 2
The Cockatrice (and Basilisk) featured in Curiosity Corner ~ 3
The Dragon featured in Curiosity Corner ~ 4
The Raven featured in Curiosity Corner ~ 5
The Chimera featured in Curiosity Corner ~ 6
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