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Kingdom of Atenveldt Home Page

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Heraldic Submissions Page

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Atenveldt Submissions (excerpted from the S.C.A. College of Arms' Letters of Acceptance and Return)

The following submissions were registered by the SCA College of Arms, January 2009:


Christiane Dax. Badge. (Fieldless) A shakefork gules surmounted by a death's head sable.


Gepa of Sundragon. Badge. Sable, four billets fesswise two and two, a sinister canton Or.


Jean Michel of Tir Ysgithr. Holding name and device (see RETURNS for name). Azure, in bend a hawk rising contourny Or sustaining a trident bendwise sinister argent.

Submitted under the name Jean Michel du Tonnay.


Josep de Ackelane. Name and device. Argent, a chevron azure between three acorns slipped and leaved proper.

The primary name on the device form does not match the name under which this was submitted. We remind submissions heralds that, if the name is changed at kingdom, all the forms, including the armory forms, should have a thin line drawn through the original version of the name, and the new name written in the available space. Incomplete or incorrect paperwork may be grounds for administrative return.


Kelli of Tir Ysgithr. Holding name and device (see RETURNS for name). Purpure, on a chevron argent three mullets of eight points azure.

Submitted under the name Ainaiyra al-Rashna.


Marina de Medina. Name and device. Erminois, a demi-lion gules.

Nice 15th C Spanish name! Nice armory! Please inform the submitter that the ermine spots should be slightly larger.


Mateo Dominguez. Device. Per pale sable and gules, a chevron between two griffins combatant and a Latin cross formy Or.

The color emblazon uploaded to OSCAR was computer colorized.. Submissions heralds are reminded that this practice will no longer be permitted as of the March 2009 decision meetings.


Melissa of Atenveldt. Holding name and device (see RETURNS for name). Argent, a Gorgon's head cabossed proper crined with serpents vert and a bordure embattled sable.

Submitted under the name Melissa of Monster Hall.

When registering the device of Jose Leodefrediz in March 2008, it was ruled: At this time we are ruling that in the case of humans proper relying on the hair and clothing to prevent a contrast problem is acceptable. If you have to specify the hair style or style of clothing to guarantee identifiability of the charge, then a contrast problem will exist. If you simply say "crined and vested", and the result is little or no skin touching the field, then a contrast problem doesn't exist (assuming the human can still be identified). This applies only to humans proper, not humans argent.

The Gorgon's head is considered a human head, so this precedent applies and this device is registerable.


Richard Attekirck the Rabbit. Name and device. Per bend sinister gules and azure, a rabbit courant and two swords in saltire argent.

There was some question whether the byname the Rabbit was registerable given that the earliest example of the spelling rabbit in the Oxford English Dictionary s.v. rabbit is from 1696. The spelling rabbyts appears in 1471 in the same entry. Given that the <i/y> switch is standard in Middle English, rabbit is a plausible period spelling of the word.


Rowland Tode. Name and device (see PENDS for household name). Argent, a chevron azure between two wooden wagon wheels proper and a toad vert.

Nice 16th C English name! This device does not conflict with the device of Cáelfind ingen Chathassaig, Argent, a chevron azure between two brown snails proper and a wyvern passant vert. There is a CD for the change of type of the secondary charges (from snails-and-wyvern to wheels-and-toad), and a CD for the change of only the posture of the charge in base, from tergiant to passant.


Seán an Gleanna. Device. Argent, three martlets gules, on a chief sable a claymore bendwise sinister inverted proper.

The following submissions were returned for further work, January 2009:


Ainaiyra al-Rashna. Name.

This name is returned for problems with the documentation and construction. First, no documentation was provided on the LoI, and none was found by the College, that Ainaiyra is a period given name in any culture. The LoI documented Ainairya (note spelling) from "Avesta: Zoroastrian Archives", but this website gives no evidence either Ainairya was used before 1600 or that, if it was, Ainaiyra is a plausible variant spelling. Lacking such evidence, neither Ainairya nor Ainaiyra is registerable.

Second, the byname al-Rashna was intended to mean 'the just'. Rashna was also documented from "Avesta: Zoroastrian Archives" as a masculine Parsi given name. Loyall notes:

The Parsi names from the submitter's source are dated to the nineteenth century; unless they can be shown to have been used in our period by another source, they are not suitable for use in the SCA..

Even if Rashna was shown to be a period masculine given name, al-Rashna is not a correct construction. Da'ud ibn Auda, "Period Arabic Names and Naming Practices", lists various laqabs ("a combination of words into a byname or epithet, usually religious, relating to nature, a descriptive, or of some admirable quality the person had (or would like to have)") of the form al-X, e.g., al-Rashid 'the Rightly-guided' and al-Fadl 'the Prominent'. These examples show that the pattern was used in Arabic, but not that it was used in Persian. Because Arabic and Persian are distinct languages with different grammar, orthography, name construction, and name pools, patterns which are plausible in one language are not necessarily plausible in the other. Lacking evidence either that Persian words were used in Arabic al-X laqabs, or that Persian used the construction al-X 'the X' to form bynames, al-Rashna would not be registerable even if Rashna was shown to be a period Persian word.

Her armory has been registered under the holding name Kelli of Tir Ysgithr.


Ascelina Alánn ingen Ailella. Badge. (Fieldless) Two dragons segreant addorsed tails pendant and entwined argent.

This device conflicts with the device of Iain Alasdair MacKenzie, Gules scaly Or, two dragons segreant addorsed argent. There is a CD for the fieldlessness, but the position of the tails is not worth difference.


Jean Michel du Tonnay. Name.

The byname du Tonnay is not grammatically correct. Tonnay is the name of a French city. This spelling can be found as early as 1212, in The Cartulary of the Monaster of St. Frideswide at Oxford, Spenser Robert Wigram, ed. In French, a locative byname based on the proper name of a city which does not begin with a definite article uses the preposition de, not du. We would change the byname to de Tonnay in order to register the name, but the submitter specifically notes that if he cannot have du Tonnay he'd prefer to have it dropped rather than changed to de Tonnay.

Unfortunately, we cannot drop the byname to register the name as Jean Michel, for two reasons. First, Jean Michel conflicts with the registered name Ian Michael. Properly pronounced, Ian has one syllable, not two, which means that the given names are not significantly different in sound. Since the bynames differ only by one letter, they are not significantly different in appearance.

Second, Jean Michel is too similar to the submitter's legal name to be registered. While both Jean and Michel differ in spelling from his legal given name and his legal surname, the change in spelling does not create a significant change in pronunciation, which is required by AH III.A.9.

His device has been registered under the holding name Jean Michel of Tir Ysgithr.


Melissa of Monster Hall. Name.

This is returned for lack of documentation that of Monster Hall is a plausible English locative byname. The LoI documented it as part of a household name registered in January 1973. However, the past registration of the household name does not provide any support for the current registerability of of Monster Hall unless the submitter is a close legal relative of the owner of the household name Monsters of Monster Hall. No evidence was provided that she is, so she cannot claim the grandfather clause: “Karl Thorgeirsson of Wolfstar. No documentation was submitted and none found to suggest that Wolfstar is registerable. Wolfstar is a household name registered in December 1986. Its use here is in the form of a locative byname, but no documentation was submitted and none supplied by the commenters to suggest that it is a reasonable place name in any language compatible with the other parts of the name. If the submitter was a close legal relation (marriage, blood, or adoption) to someone who had this element registered as a byname, then it would be registerable to him via the grandfather clause. However, no documentation was submitted showing that he is eligible for the grandfather clause in this case. Barring documentation that Wolfstar is registerable as part of a name under the current rules for submission (such as via the grandfather clause or through new documentation showing it is a documented byname), it is not registerable. [LoAR 04/2008]”

While the commenters were able to find examples of English place names of the form <place name in English> + hall, including Latymerhall 1360 and Stanewey halle 1430, in Sharon L. Krossa, "A Brief, Incomplete, and Rather Stopgap Article about European Household and Other Group Names Before 1600", no one was able to find any evidence that Monster is a plausible English place name. Lacking such evidence, or alternate documentation that Monster Hall is a plausible English place name, the byname of Monster Hall is not registerable without appeal to the grandfather clause. Her device was registered under the holding name Melissa of Atenveldt. Melissa is the submitter's legal given name.


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