Fictitious & Symbolic Creatures in Art Part 23

[Ill.u.s.tration: Naiant]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Torqued]

Sh.e.l.l-fish are blazoned _erect_ or _upright_, the term hauriant being only applicable to fishes with scales and fins.

_Urinant_ (from the Latin _urino_, to duck or dive under water) signifies borne with the head downwards and the tail erect, the reverse position of hauriant.

Two dolphins are occasionally borne together, sometimes endorsed, or back to back; sometimes respecting each other.

As signifying the conquest of the sea, it appears in the shields of many seaport cities. It figures on the well-known bearings of the towns of Brighton, Dunkirk, Poole, &c.

The Dolphin appears in English heraldry as early as the middle of the thirteenth century. In a roll of arms of that date, a dolphin is given as the coat of Gile de Fiseburn.

"The G.o.dolphins of Helston," says Miss Millington, "who had estates in that part of the kingdom (Cornwall) at the time of the Conquest, bore _argent three dolphins embowed, sable_." Similar arms are borne by many English families.

The G.o.dolphins, Franklins, Franklands, Frenches, Fishers and Kennedys, in many of their branches, bear the dolphin fish as their crest.

A man playing the harp on a dolphin is the heraldic cognisance of the Walterton family.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sea-horse naiant.]

The Sea--Horse

"_His sea-horses did seem to snort amain And from their nostrils blow the fiery stream That made the sparkling waves to smoke again And flame with gold; but the white foam cream Did shine with silver, and shoot forth his beam._"

SPENSER'S _Faerie Queen_.

(Procession of the Sea Divinities.)

The steeds of Neptune are favourite subjects in ancient poetry and art in the triumphs and processions of the marine deities, drawing the chariot of the sea-G.o.d in its progress through the waves. The imaginative Greeks pictured to themselves the horses of Poseidon in the rolling and bounding waves as they pursue each other in haste towards the sh.o.r.e, "curling their monstrous heads." This may seem to account for the constant and close connection between the G.o.d and the horse. The origin of the horse is ascribed to the contest between Poseidon and Athenae as to who should make to mankind the most useful present; Neptune created the horse, Minerva the olive-tree.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sea-horse erect.]

The city of Lampsacus, in Mysia, founded by the Phoceans, adopted the winged sea-horse as their monetary type, in allusion to the fleetness of their vessels. Others of the maritime States of Greece also adopted the sea-horse upon their coins.

A coin of the celebrated Pyrrhus, King of Epirus (slain B.C. 272), the knight-errant of ancient heroes, represents the head of Achilles, the reputed ancestor of Pyrrhus, on one side, and the Nereid, Thetis, the mother of Achilles, on the sea-horse on the reverse. Thetis carries the arms forged by Vulcan for Achilles, in allusion to the succour brought by Pyrrhus to the Italian Greeks against the barbarians, as the rising Romans were termed by them.

In Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," we find a reference to a veritable sea-horse, if we may believe our authority. John Sobieski, the victorious King of Poland, in his letters to his wife, when he raised the memorable siege of Vienna and delivered Europe for ever from the incursions of the Turks, describes to her how, in the tent of Mustapha, he found the great standard of the Turks, "_made of the hair of the sea-horse (?) wrought with a needle and embroidered with Arabic figures_." It was afterwards hung up by the order of the Emperor in the Cathedral of St.

Stephens, "where," adds the historian, "_I have seen it_."

The coast of Naples is celebrated for the production of a small fish in great repute with mothers who nurse their offspring; among its other virtues it is said to cure the bite of a mad dog. It is about four to six inches in length, and has a head resembling that of a horse, terminating in a dragon's tail. This is the tiny hippocampus of our public aquariums.

The Neapolitans call them "cavalli-marini," which was once ingeniously translated by a learned English traveller as "horse marines."

This fabulous marine creature in heraldry is compounded of the fore quarters of a horse with webbed paws, and the hinder part of a fish or dolphin. A scalloped fin is continued down the neck and back in place of a mane. It is frequently, though erroneously, to be seen depicted with the flowing mane of a horse; wings are also sometimes added to it, both of which, it is needless to say, are wrong, unless specially mentioned in the blazon.

The Westenras (Baron Rossmore), descended from the family of Van Wa.s.senhaer of Wa.s.senburg, were of great antiquity in Holland, and they bore the augmentation of the sea-horse in reference to the valour and intrepidity of an ancestor, who, during the Duke of Alva's campaign, was actively employed against the enemies of his country and undertook at great risk to swim across an arm of the sea with important despatches to his besieged countrymen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Arms of the city of Belfast. The sinister supporter and crest are Sea-horses.]

The Sea-horse is of very frequent use in armory, and usually has reference to meritorious actions performed at sea. It is also borne by many seaport towns in allusion to the trade and commerce of the port, as in the arms of the city of Belfast.

Cromwell, Protector, bore as supporters a lion of England and a sea-horse, probably to denote his protectorship of the sea, as of the land.

Bossewell ("Works of Armorie," 1589), in his peculiar mixture of English and Latin, gives a quaint description of the animal: "This water-horse of the sea is called a hippotame, for that he is like an horse in back, mayne, and neying: rostro resupinato a primis dentibus: cauda tortuosa, ungulis binis. He abideth in the waters on the day, and eateth corn by night et hunc Nilus gignit." The latter may be cla.s.sed with those fantastic ornamental forms frequently employed in fountains and waterworks, such as the _Ichthyocentaur_, _i.e._, a combination of man and horse, or the centaur with a fish's extremity.

Sea-lion

or _Lion poisson_, a mythical sea-creature, frequently used in heraldry as an emblem of bold actions achieved on the ocean in the country's service.

It is depicted as the fore part of a lion with webbed feet, the hinder part ending in a fish's tail.

Two such animals support the arms of Viscount Falmouth.

The Earl of Howth has for supporters _a sea-lion argent_, and a mermaid, proper. The crest also is a sea-lion.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sea-lion erect.]

The crest of Duckworth is _a tower, the battlements partly demolished, from the top flames issuant proper; on the sinister side a sea-lion erect azure, pressing against the tower_.

Silvestre.--_Argent, a sea-lion couchant azure, crowned armed and langued gules._

When the sea-lion or other compounded creature of this kind is erect, it should be clearly blazoned as "a sea-lion erect on his tail," to distinguish it from naiant, the swimming position natural to it.

Sea-dog

is depicted like a talbot in shape, but with the tail like that of a beaver, the feet webbed and the whole body scaled like a fish, a scalloped fin continued along the back from the head to the tail.

Baron Stourton has two such beasts, sable, scaled or, for his supporters.

The crest of Sir H. Delves Broughton.--_A sea-dog's head gules, eared and finned argent._

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sea-dog rampant.]

The SEA-BULL, SEA-WOLF, SEA-BEAR, SEA-CAT, SEA-DRAGON, etc., when they occur in heraldry, are all depicted as having the anterior portions of their bodies in the forms which their several names denote; but, like the sea-lion and sea-horse, they have fishes tails and webbed paws.

In conclusion, having, as far as possible, given the _raison d'etre_ of each, and traced the life-history and characteristics of the many strange and fantastic creatures in our symbolic menagerie, it only remains to express the hope that the information contained in this volume may be found both interesting and useful, as without some such knowledge there can be little or no intelligent understanding of the proper treatment of the forms of these mythical and symbolic beings. The suggestive ill.u.s.trations, while giving the recognised forms of each, leaves to the artist free scope to adopt his own style of art treatment, whether purely heraldic or merely decorative.

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