Fictitious & Symbolic Creatures in Art Part 15

A creature very similar to the harpy (a combination of several badges), was one of the favourite devices of Richard III., viz., a falcon with the head of a maiden holding the white rose of York.

The Heraldic Pelican

"_Then sayd the pellycane When my byrats be slayne With my bloude I them reuyue (revive) Scrypture doth record, The same dyd our Lord, And rose from deth to lyue._"

SKELTON, "Armory of Birds."

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Pelican in her piety, wings displayed.]

The character ascribed to the pelican is nearly as fabulous as that of the phnix. From a clumsy, gluttonous, piscivorous water-bird, it was by the growth of legends transformed into a mystic emblem of Christ, whom Dante terms "Nostro Pelicano." St. Hieronymus gives the story of the pelican restoring its young ones destroyed by serpents as an ill.u.s.tration of the destruction of man by the old Serpent, and his salvation by the blood of Christ.

The Pelican in Christian Art is an emblem of Jesus Christ, by "whose blood we are healed." It is also a symbol of charity.

The "Bestiarum" says that Physiologus tells us that the pelican is very fond of its brood, but when the young ones begin to grow they rebel against the male bird and provoke his anger, so that he kills them; the mother returns to the nest in three days, sits on the dead birds, pours her blood over them, and they feed on the blood.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Heraldic Pelican in her piety.]

Heralds usually represent this bird with wings endorsed and neck embowed, wounding her breast with her beak. Very many early painters mistakenly represented it similar to an eagle, and not as a natural pelican, which has an enormous bag attached to the lower mandible, and extending almost from the point of the bill to the throat. When in her nest feeding her young with her blood, she is said to be IN HER PIETY.

The Romans called filial love piety, hence Virgil's hero is called the "pious aeneas," because he rescued his father from the flames of Troy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Crest, a Pelican vulning herself proper, wings endorsed.]

The myth that pelicans feed their young with their blood arose from the following habit, on which the whole superstructure of fable has been erected: They have a large bag attached to their under-bill. When the parent bird is about to feed its brood, it macerates small fish in this bag or pouch; then, pressing the bag against its breast, transfers the macerated food to the mouths of the young ones.

The pelican in her piety is not an uncommon symbol upon monumental bra.s.ses. That of William Prestwick, Dean of Hastings, in Warbleton Church, Suss.e.x, has it with the explanatory motto: "Sic Xtus dilexit nos."

EXAMPLES.--_Gules, a pelican in her piety, or._--_Chauntrell._

_Azure, three pelicans argent, vulning themselves proper._--_Pelham_, _Somerset_, &c.

A pelican's head erased, or otherwise detached from the body, must always be drawn in the same position and vulning itself. It should always be separated as low as the upper part of the breast.

It is said naturalists of old, observing that the pelican had a crimson stain on the tip of its beak, reported that it was accustomed to feed its young with the blood flowing from its breast, which it tore for the purpose. In this belief the Early Christians adopted the pelican to figure Christ, and set forth the redemption through His blood, which was willingly shed for us His children.

ALPHONSO THE WISE, King of Castile (+ 1252). A pelican in its piety.

Motto: "Pro lege et grege."

WILLIAM OF Na.s.sAU, founder of the Republic of the United Provinces, one of the n.o.blest characters of modern history. He bore on some of his standards the pelican, and on others the motto: "Pro lege, grege et rege."

POPE CLEMENT IX. One of his devices was the pelican in its piety. Motto: "Aliis non sibi clemens" ("Tender-hearted to others, not himself").

[Ill.u.s.tration: The natural Pelican.]

Other mottoes for the pelican:

"Ut vitam habeant" ("That they may have life").

"Immemor ipse sui" ("Unmindful herself of herself").

"Mortuos vivificat" ("Makes the dead live").

"Nec sibi parcit" ("Nor spares herself").

The Martlet

"_The guest of summer, The temple-haunting martlet._"

"Macbeth."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The Martlet (_Merlette_ or _Merlot_, French; _Merula_, Latin). The house-marten or swallow is a favourite device in heraldry all over Europe, and has a.s.sumed a somewhat unreal character from the circ.u.mstance that it catches its food on the wing and never appears to alight on the ground as other birds do. It builds its nest frequently under the eaves of houses, from whence it can take flight readily, rarely alighting, as it gains its food while on the wing; the length of its wings and the shortness of its legs preventing it from rising should it rest on the ground.

"No jutty friese, b.u.t.tress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird Hath made his pendant bed, and procreant cradle."

_Macbeth_, Act i. sc. 6.

It is depicted in armory with wings close, and in profile, with thighs, but with no visible legs or feet.

The martlet is the appropriate "difference" or mark of cadency for the fourth son. Sylva.n.u.s Morgan says: "It modernly used to signify, as that bird seldom lights on land, so younger brothers have little land to rest on but the wings of their own endeavours, who, like the swallows, become the travellers in their seasons."

The swallow (_hirondelle_) is the punning cognisance for Arundell. The seal of the town of Arundel is a swallow, Baron Arundell of Wardour bears six swallows for his arms. The great Arundells have as motto, "De Hirundine" ("Concerning the swallow"), and "Nulli praeda" ("A prey to none"). A Latin poem of the twelfth century is thus rendered:

"Swift as the swallow, whence his arms' device And his own arms are took, enraged he flies Thro' gazing troops, the wonder of the field, And strikes his lance in William's glittering s.h.i.+eld."

"We find it in Glovers' roll," says Planche, "borne by Roger de Merley, clearly as 'armes parlantes,' although in a border." Roger de Merley: "_baree d'argent et de goulz a la bordure d'azur, et merlots d'or en le bordure_"; showing it was some difference of a family coat.

The Alerion

is a heraldic bird, represented as an eaglet displayed, but without beak or claws. Some writers confound it with the martlet, stating that the alerion is the same bird with its wings displayed or extended. They are first found in the arms of Lorraine, which are blazoned _or, on a bend gules, three Alerions argent_, and are said to be a.s.sumed in commemoration of an extraordinary shot made by G.o.dfrey de Boulogne, "who at one draught of his bow, shooting against David's Tower in Jerusalem, broched three feetless birds called Alerions, which the House of Lorraine, decending from his race, continued to this day." It is impossible, says Planche, who broached this wonderful story, but it is perfectly evident that the narrator was the party who drew the longbow, and not the n.o.ble G.o.dfrey.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Alerion displayed.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Heraldic Eagle.]

The letters of the word ALERION appear to be merely an anagram formed by the same letters LORAINE, and may account for the birds on the s.h.i.+eld (probably eaglets) being called alerions.

The eagle displayed and the two-headed eagle are but extreme conventionalised representations of the natural bird.

The Liver (Cormorant)

Liver, a fabulous bird, supposed to have given its name to Liverpool and commemorated in the arms of that city. It is traditionally described as a bird that frequented _the pool_, near which the town was afterwards founded. The arms granted in 1797 are thus blazoned: _Argent a cormorant, in the beak a branch of seaweed all proper_, and for crest, _on a wreath of the colours, a cormorant, the wings elevated, in the beak a branch of Laver proper_. It is more than probable that the bird on the arms suggested the name "Liver" being applied to it. The fiction naturally arose from the desire to find a derivation for the name of the town. It is, however, always depicted as a cormorant. On the s.h.i.+eld the bird is always depicted with the wings _close_, and on the crest the wings are _elevated_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: An Heraldic Tigre pa.s.sant.]

The Heraldic Tigre or Tyger