Page:A Complete Guide to Heraldry.djvu/193

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THE HUMAN FIGURE IN HERALDRY
167

gules, legs and arms in mail proper, at the side a scymitar sable, hilted or, on the head a turban with a crescent and feather argent, holding in the dexter hand a crescent of the last."

The crest of Pilkington ["a mower with his scythe in front habited as follows: a high-crowned hat with flap, the crown party per pale, flap the same, counterchanged; coat buttoned to the middle, with his scythe in bend proper, habited through quarterly and counterchanged argent and gules"], and the very similar crest of De Trafford, in which the man holds a flail, are curious, and are the subjects of appropriate legends.

The crest of Clerk of Pennycuick (a demi-man winding a horn) refers to the curious tenure by which the Pennycuick estate is supposed to be held, namely, that whenever the sovereign sets foot thereupon, the proprietor must blow a horn from a certain rocky point. The motto, "Free for a blast," has reference to the same.

The arms of the College of Surgeons in Edinburgh, I fancy, afford the only instance of what is presumably a corpse, the blazon being: "Azure, a man (human body) fesswise between a dexter hand having an eye on the palm issuing out of a cloud downward and a castle situate on a rock proper, within a bordure or charged with several instruments peculiar to the art (sic); on a canton of the first a saltire argent surmounted of a thistle vert, crowned of the third."

When we come to parts of the human body instances of heads, arms, and legs are legion.

There are certain well-known heraldic heads, and though many instances occur where the blazon is simply a "man's head," it will be most frequently found that it is more specifically described.

Sloane Evans in his "Grammar of Heraldry" specifies eight different varieties, namely: 1. The wild man's; 2. The Moor's; 3. The Saracen's; 4. The Saxon's; 5. The Englishman's; 6. The old man's; 7. The woman's; 8. The child's.

The wild man's or savage's head is usually represented with a wreath of leaves about the temples, but not necessarily so (Fig. 253).

The head of the Moor, or "blackamoor," as it is more usually described, is almost always in profile, and very frequently adorned with a twisted wreath (torse) about the temples (Fig. 254).

The head of the Saracen is also usually found with wreaths about the temples (Fig. 255).

The head of the Saxon is borne by several Welsh families, and is supposed to be known by the absence of a beard.

The Englishman's head, which is borne by the Welsh family of Lloyd of Plymog, has no very distinctive features, except that whilst the hair and beard of the savage are generally represented brown, they