Fascinating

As I've previously mentioned, I've joined the Society for Creative Anachronism recently, and I've thrown myself into the incredibly fun and creative activities of that group.

One of the standard things for an SCA newbie to do is to create a name and a device for themselves. My name came to me in an instant and I love it (though I won't share it here, for Googlesafety reasons) but I held off on making a device because it seemed like such an overwhelming task.

This weekend, after some heraldry research, I started playing around with images, and came across this fantastic site where one can design a device for free. That allowed me to play around with colours and ideas easily, and below is the device I came up with:



Argent, a saltire vert, in pale two cinquefoils azure, in fess two fleury crosses sable.

I chose the white & green colour scheme because those colours speak to me. The blue cinquefoils are reminiscent of the blue lechenaultia, my favourite flower. The crosses are for my religion and the fact that they're floriated is for faith, wisdom and chivalry.

It was only after I'd finished and decided that I loved the design that I looked up the actual heraldic meanings of the elements of the device. This is what I found:

Argent means: Peace & sincerity
Vert means: Hope, joy, loyalty in love
Saltire cross means: Resolution
Cinquefoil means: Hope and joy
Azure means: Truth and loyalty
Fleury cross means: One who has conquered
Sable means: Constancy or grief

I was pretty impressed - a lot of heraldry devices are about war or other militant themes, or oriented towards occupations. Somehow I'd unfailingly picked out colours and symbols that represent everything for which I am striving.

It was the meaning of the fleury crosses that particularly got me. "One who has conquered grief." Seriously. That's a coincidence that made me boggle. I couldn't have come up with a better snapshot of my emotional state if I'd deliberately set out to engineer one!

I'm liking the device more every time I look at it, and once my SCA membership card arrives I'm going to go register the name & device with the herald. It's me, through and through.