Many years ago, six bored heralds got together and fancied they might try to challenge themselves. They declared a wish to come up with a device that was simple, with an easy and unambiguously emblazonable blazon, but that would be almost impossible to blazon.
The device they came up with was this one, and it has been named after them, as a rare and special few devices have (“The Jolly Roger”, “Old Glory”, “The Union Jack” and so on). See if you can blazon it, if you’re not already familiar with it, but don’t be sad if you can’t.
Alternatively, here’s a song about it, to the tune of Baldwin of Erebor’s The Herald’s Complaint.
April 2013
When all the world was very young and dirt was new
And the Known World’s kingdoms only numbered one or two
So it was a punnet (that’s the word) of mad heraldic souls
All met by happenstance around a local water hole.
They were neither timid petals nor of heart too faint,
They were fully versed in blazonry and tinctured paint.
They recited swathes of Papworth with a joyful, boundless cheer,
But they spoke of only one device while passersby weren’t near:
- It was a lozenge voided counterchanged upon an evil field,
Divided eight ways gyronny upon a standard heater shield.
The gyrons were in no way mellow:
Lozenges of red and yellow,
Alternating vairy white and blue.
This terrible confection was their secret shame,
For it was those very heralds gave the thing its name
They had sought to build a blazon all their fellows to perplex,
But they didn’t know how simple things could turn out quite complex
Philosophers in other times of “chaos” speak,
All believing their hypotheses to be unique
But the butterflies and half-dead cats you really don’t require;
If you want a chaos theory, this is all you could desire:
- It is a lozenge voided counterchanged upon an evil field,
Divided eight ways gyronny upon a standard heater shield.
The gyrons are in no way mellow:
Lozenges of red and yellow,
Alternating vairy white and blue.
“This blazon is untenable,” is your reply
“No, this mad art deco labyrinth will just not fly!”
But consider all the heralds who in armour take the field
And imagine what they’d gladly bear upon their fighting shield:
- It is a lozenge voided counterchanged upon an evil field,
Divided eight ways gyronny upon a standard heater shield.
The gyrons are in no way mellow:
Lozenges of red and yellow,
Alternating vairy white and blue.
And that’s what you’ll see when they all fight you!