27 March 2004, A.S. XXXVIII
Kingdom of Atenveldt

Unto Their Royal Majesties Jonathon and Deille and Their Youthful Heirs Cosmo and Ismenia; Lord Seamus McDaid, Aten Principal Herald; the Heralds in the Atenveldt College of Heralds; and to All Whom These Presents Come,

Greetings of the New Year from Marta as tu Mika-Mysliwy, Brickbat Herald!

This is an addendum to the March 2004 internal Atenveldt Letter of Intent; several submissions arrived just after I’d published the March Internal LoI, and rather then having these wait for consideration, I am posting these now for consideration/inclusion in the April 2004 Atenveldt LoI. I accept online commentary, in addition to questions pertaining to heraldry: brickbat@nexiliscom.com. Please have comments on these submissions by 10 April 2004..

Please consider for the April 2004 Atenveldt Letter of Intent:

Adrian Drake (Ered Sul): NEW NAME and DEVICE

Per bend sinister, a dragon segreant and a horse rampant contourny argent.

The name is English. Adrian is found in “ Late Sixteenth Century English Given Names,” Talan Gwynek; it is recorded three times, with the notation that one of the bearers was female (as is the submitter). Drake is an English family name, dated with this spelling to 1185, 1190 (Reaney and Wilson, 2^nd edition, p. 107), and notably carried by the 16^th C. navigator and explorer Sir Francis Drake. The submitter will not take major changes to the name.

Constance Audrey (Burning Sands): NEW NAME and DEVICE

Per chevron azure and sable, a horse passant and a horseshoe inverted argent.

Constance is an English feminine given name introduced at the time of the Norman Conquest; this spelling is dated to 1273 (Withycombe, 3^rd edition, p. 72. s.n. Constance). Audrey is an English surname dated to 1279 (Reaney and Wilson, 2^nd edition, p. 19, s.n. Audrey).

Hraban Peterov (Twin Moons): NEW NAME

The name is Russian. Both elements are found in “A Dictionary of Period Russian Names (and some of their Slavic roots),” Paul Wickenden of Thanet (http://www.sca.org/heraldry/paul/). Hraban is a masculine given name, a variant of Graban’, which is dated to 1495. Petr is the Russianization of the masculine given name Peter; there is a variant spelling as our “standard” English Peter, dated to 1420. “Paul Goldschmidt's Dictionary of Russian Names - Grammar” (http://www.sca.org/heraldry/paul/zgrammar.html) shows this as the basic way of forming the Russian patronymic.

Gabrielle de Benon (Iron Wood Loch): NEW CHANGE OF NAME to Melissa the Poulteress and NEW CHANGE OF DEVICE

Gules, a bend sinister cotised Or between a cock passant and an egg basket argent.

The original name was registered March 1994 through the Kingdom of Atenveldt: if the name change is registered, the currently-registered name should be released.

Melissa is a feminine given name that comes from the Greek, “bee”; it is found as the name of a fairy in 16^th C. Italian poetry (Withycombe, 3^rd edition, p. 217). It is the submitter’s legal given name. The Compact Oxford English Dictionary lists poulterer as an individual who deals in poultry as a commodity, with the Poulterer Guild dated to 1424; the same entry demonstrates poulteress as a woman who deals in this commodity (p. 1199); this seems a very reasonable occupational byname.

Might the submitter be contacted to see that if her device changed is registered, whether she wishes to maintain her old armory, registered March 1994, Per pale gules and argent, a sea-horse within a bordure semy-de-lis all counterchanged., as a badge or to release it.

Mhuireagáin “Fae” MacKenna (Barony of Atenveldt): NEW NAME and DEVICE

Vert, an owl displayed grasping a branch argent with an orle of thistles, heads to center Or.

The name is Irish, of some sort. It suffers from almost a complete lack of documentation. The given name is “a feminine Gaelic spelling of modern Irish surname Morgna and or “Merrigan” which is traced back to celtic cultural regions in both Ireland and Scotland.” There is nothing to substantiate included this claim. (For starters, a significant number of “Celtic” names names are masculine or feminine. They are rarely applied to both genders, nor can a masculine name be feminized simply, as is often the case with Romance language names.) As a result, I am referring to “Concerning the Names Morgan, Morgana, Morgaine, Muirghein, Morrigan, and the Like,” Heather Rose Jones (http://www.medievalscotland.org/problem/names/morgan.shtml); this is found in the Medieval Names Archive’s “Problem Names” section. The name which comes closest to this is Muirghein, with the forms of Muirgen (Old Irish), in Muirgein (Medieval Irish) and Muirghein (Early Modern Irish); it is one given name in medieval records that was given to both boys and girls, and as such does not need to be “feminized.”. The submitter wishes a 15th-17th Irish name, and one of the two latter forms seems more to use.

Fae is “nic. Application for ‘the Fair’ or as a fairy.” This sets off all sorts of alarms (to me at least) for the literary character of Morgan/a le Fey in the Arthurian legend. Irish descriptive bynames tended to be pragmatic, referring to physical characters or personality traits (for a listing of documented masculine descriptive bynames, see http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/mari/AnnalsIndex/DescriptiveBynames/Alpha.shtml). “The Fairy” seems unlikely, and “the Fair” would possibly more likely refer specifically to one’s yellow hair, or a pale skin color. (Coincidentally, this list contains an entry, na bhFeadh, “[of] the Faes,” which refers to the name of O'Naghtan's country in the barony of Athlone, County Roscommon.) The English feminine given name Fay appears to be a 19^th C. introduction (Withycombe, 3^rd ed., p. 116).

Mac Kenna is stated to be “an Irish surname descended as child of Kenna, common from the advent of surnames”. Again, there is no documentation. MacLysaght’s The Surnames of Ireland notes the Anglicized form of the name as Mac Kenna or Kennagh, the Irish Gaelic form as Mac Cionnaoith (p. 175).

Irish Gaelic names are a definite weak spot for me. I might venture Muirghein na bhFeadh Mac Cionnaoith as a possibility, to get “all the bits in,” but I don’t know if this is correct, or if the sound of the first two elements is too allusive to Morgan le Fey. Compounding all of this is the submitter will not accept major changes to the submission.

Mihil von Brandenburg (Burning Sands): NEW NAME and DEVICE

Per pall inverted sable, vert and argent, two stag’s heads cabossed argent and another sable.

Withycombe notes that Mighel was a common medieval form of the masculine given name Michael, and this was in turn reduced to forms such as Mihel, Miel and Mial; while these aren’t dated, the spelling Mihill is, to 1549 (Withycombe, 3^rd edition, pp. 218-9, s.n. Michael). Mihil doesn’t seem an unreasonable spelling variant. Brandenburg city is one of the oldest permanently settled locales in the Mark, Germany; its original core is the Dominsel, or cathedral island, an island in the middle of the Havel River. Originally, Brennaburg castle, built by the Slavic Havelli tribe, stood on the island, and in 928 it was conquered by the Germanic King Henry–the first mention of Brandenburg appears to be in 948, when the status of the settlement on the island was elevated to the seat of a bishopric (Kulturland Brandenburg; Brandenburg on the Havel: 1050 Years, http://www.brandenburg.de/kulturland/englisch/s03.htm ). English and German name elements are a permitted combination.

Orion Storm Bruin (Iron Wood Loch): NAME and DEVICE RESUBMISSION from Kingdom, May 2003

Per fess azure and vert, on a bend cotised between a bear passant and a heart Or, four gouts inverted palewise gules.

The original name submission was Orion Stürmbruin. The byname mixed German name elements (Stu/ürm,"storm,") with English ones (bruin, an adjective for “bear”) in a single word, violating RfS III.1. Name Grammar and Syntax. All names must be grammatically correct for period names and follow documented patterns. Standard grammatical rules for a language will be applied unless documentation is provided for non-standard usages in period names from that language. Names should generally combine elements that are all from a single linguistic culture, but a name may be registered that combines languages. The byname has now been rendered into a double surname, sometimes seen in late period English names.

Orion is a martyr's name, and it is used as a masculine given name in the 14th C., found in "A Dictionary of Period Russian Names (and some of their Slavic roots)," by Paul Wickenden of Thanet ( http://www.sca.org/heraldry/paul/ ). Bruin and Storm are both English surnames. Storm dates to 1206, meaning “storm” and also referring to a fiery temperament (Reaney and Wilson, 2^nd edition, p. 335, s.n. Storm). Bruin dates to 1209 (ibid., p. 53, s.n. Bruin). Storm dates to 1206, meaning “storm” and also referring to a fiery temperament (Reaney and Wilson, 2^nd edition, p. 335, s.n. Storm). It is likely that although Orion is a saint’s/martyr’s name, it is probably from the Orthodox hagiography and might not have been known or recognized by the Roman Catholic church. Nevertheless, names using Russian and English name elements are still permitted registration by the College of Arms (as English trade was established with Russia, with the exception of military equipment, between Elizabeth I of England, and Ivan IV (the Terrible), http://www.fsmitha.com/h3/h20-rus.htm . Muscovy Company was the first major English joint-stock trading company, beginning in 1553 as an exploration group seeking a possible northeast passage to Asia. It was chartered in 1555, with a monopoly on the newly opened Russian trade ( http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0834538.html ). It is possible that Russian names filtered back to English lands.)

The device is on the edge of complexity, with four charge types and four tinctures used. While a field division that doesn't match the ordinary used is occasionally seen, it is very rare, and using it here might be considered making the design too complex and less period in appearance; this risk has been explained and is understood by the submitter. The original gouts were too “short and fat,” and looked like roundels from a distance. This has been corrected.

Oslaf of Northumbria (Burning Sands): NEW NAME and DEVICE

Sable, three pallets couped argent.

The name is Anglo-Saxon. Oslaf is the name of a son of Æthelfrith, King of Northumbria (d. 616), noted in Imperium Imperivm Basileia, a website of genealogical information linking almost every ruler of Europe from every time period ( http://www.ghgcorp.com/shetler/oldimp/ ). While Oslaf’s father was king of Northumbria, one of the seven English kingdoms in Anglo-Saxon times, it appears that Oslaf himself never ascended to the throne (he is one of seven children listed by name, and two (elder) brothers, Oswald and Oswiu, were Kings of Northumbria), so that the name is probably not considered presumptive. Oslaf’s very brief biographical sketch is found at ( http://www.ghg.net/shetler/oldimp/439.html ). Additionally, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes in 568 that “This year Caewlin and Cutha fought with Aethelbryht, and put them to flight into Kent, killing two eoldormen at Wimbledon, Oslaf and Chebba.” (Vortigern Studies, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, The Text of the years 281-601 A.D., translated by the Rev. James Ingram, http://www.vortigernstudies.org.uk/arthist/vortigernquotesasc.htm ). This incident took place 48 years before King Æthelfrith’s death, so it is possible that this is a different Oslaf, and that this was not a unique name, carried only by the son of a king.

This might be too close to the important non-SCA armory of Tycho Brahe (Mr. Silvernose himself–give me a piece of aluminum foil and ask to see my impersonation of him sometime!), Sable a pale argent. There is 1 CD for difference in number of primaries (three vs. one). The second CD is derived from couping the pallets. It has been mentioned in the Precedents from the time of Jaelle of Armida that a CD is granted between an ordinary throughout and one that is couped. In a ruling by Francois Laurel (italics mine):

[Or semy of apples gules, a Celtic cross vert] This device conflicts with Morgana Swansdottir, Or, a Celtic cross equal armed, quarterly pierced and throughout vert. There is one CD for adding the semy of apples. While we give a CD for a standard cross throughout versus a cross couped, for most crosses (such as crosses fleury) we do not give such difference for couped versus throughout. The quarter piercing in Morgana's cross is very small and the visual distinction it gives is lost with the other piercings in the center of a Celtic cross. Therefore, there is no difference for the type of cross. [Muirgen of Applecross, 02/02, R-Calontir]

This reflects the general rule of granting a CD between couped vs. throughout ordinaries.

Saeunn Kerling (Ered Sul): NEW NAME

The name is Old Norse. Sources I’ve used to try documenting the name are “Viking Names found in the Landnámabók,” Aryanhwy merch Catmael (http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/landnamabok.html); “Viking Bynames found in the Landnámabók,” Aryanhwy merch Catmael (http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/vikbynames.html); and An Introduction to Old Norse, 2^nd ed., E.V. Gordon, Oxford, 1957, p. 361.

The given name is unusual because it is a construct, rather than being take from a standard list of documented names. It is constructed from sae, “sea,” and unn, “to love.” Sæhildr (hildr, “battle”, Gordon p. 354) and Sæuðr are two documented feminine given names found in Aryanhwy’s Viking Names, so that Sæ / Sae could be reasonable as a protheme in a given naem. Additionally, sælendingr , “Sealander, Dane”, is found in Aryanhwy’s Viking Bynames. Unfortunately, I cannot corroborate unn. Gordon shows unnr,“wave,” and unna, “not to grudge, to grant, to allow; to love” (p. 391). I don’t know if this is how an ON given name would’ve been constructed , particularly with a verb element; compounded with this is that the submitter allows no minor changes to it, so even if this is a plausible name construction, any minor change that would be necessary to correct it into an ON form could not be made.

The byname means “hag” or “old woman” (kerlinganef , “hag's-nose”, is found in “Viking Bynames found in the Landnámabók,” Aryanhwy merch Catmael (http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/vikbynames.html), and is found as its own entry in An Introduction to Old Norse, 2^nd ed., E.V. Gordon, Oxford, 1957, p. 361.).

Wilhelm Zugspitzer (Atenveldt): NEW NAME and DEVICE

Per pale sable and gules, in pale a sun Or eclipsed gules and a mountain couped vert, snow-capped argent.

The name is German. Wilhelm is a masculine given name found in “German Given Names from 1495,” Aryanhwy merch Catmael (http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/german1495.html). The Zugspitze is the highest mountain in Germany (2964 m), http://www.germany-tourism.co.uk/pages/itineraries_bavaria_german_alpine_road_garmisch_partenkirchen.html. This could be an unmarked locative, but it also appeals to the submitter as a physical description of him (he is 6'8" and the largest man in his fighting unit). I don’t know if the terminal -r in the byname is reasonable (it “sounds” right to me). The submitter will not accept major changes to his name.

[A complete aside here. He mentions in his submission that his full name will be Wilhelm Zugspitzer Landsknecht Soldner von der Hohepunkt, “William Zugspitzer Landsknecht Solder of the Highest Peak.” Not that he’s trying to register all of this, but this is the second time that I’ve run into a landsknecht persona who has this idea of a very extravagant name. Does anyone know if these were period appellations, or just informal nicknames tacked onto a shorter formal name? Given the nature of German to describe things at very great length...]

Mounts/mountains can be drawn stylistically (as even “humps”), which are usually referred to as mounts, or more naturalistically (craggy and rough), which are usually blazoned as mountains. I don’t consider this landscape armory–it just happens to have a sun in chief, and mountains in base (which is where a mount/mountain is most likely to be found in armory). There are other issues, however.

I remain,

Marta as tu Mika-Mysliwy

c/o Linda Miku

2527 East 3^rd Street, Tucson AZ 85716

brickbat@nexiliscom.com

Atenveldt Submissions Website: atensubmissions.nexiliscom.com