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Griebel's |
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Griebel's |
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| LinkExchange Member | Free Home Pages at GeoCities |
| Top | Heraldry | New version | The story | Episodes |
| YMCA | Shrovetide | antlers | crown | original |
| translations |
My logo? Oh, my logo? (How lo can you go). Actually it's my coat of arms. Yes, it's beautiful, isn't it.
Oh, you know something about heraldry... and you don't find it beautiful... Well, you are right, but you are wrong. My "Arms" violates a handful of rules of "good heraldry"; however, it is mine.
You should read this for the story, not to enjoy great heraldry. Plus, I have created a different version which I believe is in concordance with the rules of heraldry (more about this below).
"What's all this to me?" Well, what's that to me, what it is to you. It's just me being nostalgic, OK? A guy has a right to be nostalgic. Although nostalgia is not what it used to be.
I asked somebody named Jaelle on the internet
if she could give me a "heraldic description"
of my coat of arms
--
how was I to know that
it's called a blazon(ing)
when it's an arms?
But she did send me a blazoning,
and I am very greatful.
That was long ago,
and in the meantime
I sniffed out some things heraldic,
I found some minor errors in the first blazoning,
so what follows is 50-50 mine and Jaelle's.
Now, explanation. Per pale vert and Or,
means the field is divided vertically in half,
with a left and right side, green and yellow.
But note that the right side is green...
because heraldic right, dexter,
is the right side of the bearer,
not of the viewer.
The left side is called sinister.
In other words, in the blazon
we "read" the shield from left to right.
Couped means the neck is
cut off clean,
proper means it is the default color for a deer,
which is brown.
Attired refers to the antlers,
argent means white.
How do we know the stag's head
is looking left?
Because it's the default.
Remember that the shield is usually borne
on the left arm,
and it would look rather silly if the
charges (e.g. an animal on the shield)
were not looking forward when you behold
the bearer from his left side.
(It is possible, of course, to specify the opposite).
Fesswise means that the sword is going
from left to right
(from sinister to dexter),
not up and
down, azure means blue and gules means red."
So much for the old version.
As you can see,
it's heraldic enough to be blazoned.
Brown is not a heraldic colour,
there are only these:
red, green, black, blue,
and the "metals":
gold (yellow) and silver (white).
Bad sign that I am using brown...
plus, you cannot really have a charge covering
the division of two fields.
It gets worse.
The "overall a sword..."
makes genuine heraldry specialists sick.
So, for you heraldry afficionados out there
I will have you know that
I did manage to juggle around
the elements of this arms
to end up with something which doesn't
violate the tincture rules, etc.
Actually I am quite proud of myself.
Maybe I shouldn't be,
it took me 30 years to figure it out.
Here's the blazoning:
Quarterly means the arms is "squared",
i.e. divided vertically and horizontally.
Two quarters are green, two are yellow (gold, "or").
The fields are numbered
starting from the upper left one,
ending with the lower right;
same as when you are reading running text.
Here's the new arms
in a computer generated version and a freehand drawing:
Click here for
other people's creative versions
of my coat of arms.
I have lost contact with the people at this recreation centre,
and I only remember very few names,
not including those of the other two characters in this story.
I remember
only episodes.
Klostergade 37, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark
(It still belongs with the YMCA,
but today it's a kindergarten).
They had some pretty peculiar ideas, I thought.
We sang songs of God, King and Country (oh yes).
As I recall there was very little freedom
to do what you wanted
(and that is probably not true at all,
since I also remember playing
billards, cards and chess,
and reading Mad magazines).
One thing that really annoyed me,
was making Christmas presents.
We were asked to bring a list of all the members of our family
-- I had a big family --
and then, can you believe it,
they demanded we make one present for each.
I just wished to be left alone to read a book
(or Don Martin cartoons).
Today I am grateful.
They actually made us do something,
make something with our hands.
I learned more there about woodwork
than I ever did in school.
They seemed to have an idea behind what they did,
and that was the good thing, I suppose.
I still remember the directions for plywood-work
which were hanging on the wall in the room with the workbenches:
"1. Saw 2. File 3. Apply sandpaper 4. Colour 5. Lacquer.
The last two steps may be omitted."
I guess it's still hanging there.
(Plywood was considered the most basic task.
New-comers (read: boys -- I don't know what the girls did)
were always asked to do something in plywood).
In 1971 we moved,
I started going to a different recreational centre.
They had the same facilities,
and the adults were skilled enough, I guess,
but there was a different atmosphere, other traditions.
Another culture.
Lots of storytelling, lots of stories, lots of freedom.
Different.
Usually in February.
The kids dress up in fancy dresses
and "knock the cat off the barrel":
Take a (live) cat and put it in a barrel.
Close the barrel and hang it in a line somewhere out in the open.
Let the kids get in line
and take turns at hitting the barrel with a bat.
The one who makes the bottom come off,
is the Cat King (or Queen),
and recieves a (paper) crown to wear.
The title is much-coveted.
There are variations.
When I practiced karate,
we had one barrel for the kids,
which came down in no time,
and another for the adults,
which took hours.
Of course, we (the adults)
used only fists, elbows and feet
(Did anyone use his head?
I don't think so.),
and the barrel had been soaking in water for a couple of days.
Another thing is, you don't use cats,
live or dead, nowadays; that's a medieval phenomenon.
Usually the barrel is empty;
on occasion it is filled with fruit.
(Imagine an ordered line of little
pirates, Peter Pans, nurses, princesses and Batmen
suddenly dissolving into a chaotic sea of
fancy dresses,
chasing oranges and apples).
I don't think you should try it with
bananas or coconuts.
BTW, here's a picture of me,
not in fancy dresses, but definitely
"knocking the cat off the barrel".
And it's definitely taken at YMCAs Recreation Centre,
and the bottom is definitely coming off,
so ladies and gentlemen,
this may be a historic picture:
This is when Mike L. Griebel
earned his Coat of Arms
Click here for more
photos
from the family album.
Short excerpt from our dialog:
But doesn't a royal stag carry a crown?
No, it doesn't.
Really? I thought so.
Well, it doesn't.
I wasn't disappointed or anything,
just mildly surprised.
Oh, and the shield is worn.
There are leather strips on the back,
so that you can actually wear it
when you are playing cops and robbers,
and I did a few times.
So in places some paint has come off.
Nothing serious though.
I may put up a picture one day,
so you can see the real thing.
Is the sword my intellect
which I use to seperate
true from false, right from wrong, green from yellow?
Or is it phallic?
"Blood"
dripping from the point,
I mean, really!
Or is the whole thing a symbol of male chauvinism
(stag+sword)
suppressing female values
(green+yellow)?
You tell me!
You could give me an interpretation,
which means you tell me what you think
it means to me.
But I am much more interested in translations,
i.e. in what my coat of arms means to you.
I suggest you start your translation with the phrase:
"If this coat of arms were mine,..."
(Note: This is a technique borrowed from dream analysis).
If you enjoyed reading
about my coat of arms,
perhaps you would also like to see
my dream of Entering Tibet
through a secret tunnel
going under the Great Wall of China,
to find four people:
three Tibetans and a Dane...
Heraldic description
-- Top
Search Amazon.com for books on
heraldry
--
heraldic
--
coat of arms
overall
a sword fesswise azure embrued and
hilted gules
The new modified version
-- Top
Here follows my latest version.
The original design violates several heraldic
rules:
fields 1&4: a stag's head couped or, attired argent
2&3: a sword fesswise azure embrued and
hilted gules.
Griebel's
new
Coat
Of
Arms
The story behind
-- Top
From 1967 to 1971 I went to
YMCAs recreation centre
every day after school.
Once after Shrovetide,
it must have been 1970 (?),
one of the adults suggested
that I and another boy make "coats of arms"
out of the two disks leftover from the event
(top + bottom of the barrel)
-- all we had to do was tell him which motives we wanted,
and he would sketch them for us.
I knew exactly what I wanted, and the result you see here.
Episodes
-- Top
I remember a few episodes, such as:
YMCAs Recreation Centre
-- Top
Search Amazon.com for books on
YMCA
Shrovetide
-- Top
Search Amazon.com for books on
shrovetide
Antlers
-- Top
In "real" heraldics two approaches are common:
either to depict only one half of the antlers,
or both halfs,
but highly stylized.
The artist behind my coat of arms
found a different solution...clearly
he has not depicted both sides
(or it's a very asymmetric stag),
and it cannot be only one side either.
In fact it cannot be a stag's antlers any way you twist them,
but you know, it's my stag,
and I happen to like it.
And if real stags' antlers aren't so ingenious,
too bad for them.
Crown
-- Top
In Danish, a royal stag is a "kronhjort".
Hjort means deer/stag, and "kron-" is a prefix,
related to krone, which means crown.
This was exactly why I wanted a "kronhjort", you see,
because it has a royal crown on its head, right?
Pretty obvious.
The original
-- Top
The original is about 33 cm in diameter.
The colours are somewhat darker
than on the electronic version;
in particular the green and the brown.
Other than that,
the only major differences are:
1) There are some black strokes on the antlers.
You'd have to see it.
It looks right, that's all I can say.
2) The haft of the sword is red,
with a black grid covering it.
Grooves for better grip, I guess.
3) There is blood on the point of the sword.
(I have left out the blood in the electronic version.
It's difficult to get it right,
especially in the smaller version).
Translations
-- Top
Now it's your turn.
Tell me what you see in my coat of arms.
What others have seen in my Coat of Arms
P.S.
Mike L. Griebel
mgriebel@hotmail.com
