and beasts of the chase. Beasts of prey, when springing, are blazoned as salient.
- Stringed.—Applied in specifying the tincture of the string wherewith a bugle-horn is suspended, or of the strings of a harp. The arms of Ireland are, Az.; a harp or, stringed arg.
- Treflée.—Bordered with trefoils, as is the bend borne by the Prince of Wales for Saxony.
blazoning.
It was anciently the custom at jousts and tournaments, for heralds to proclaim the armorial bearings and achievements of the various competitors, before they were permitted to engage in the lists; while an esquire would blasen, or blow a horn, to attract attention to the ceremony. Blazoning has thus come to mean, in a general sense, a public proclaiming, and, more particularly, a description of armorial bearings according to the established rules of heraldry. Iden, after killing Jack Cade, is thus made by Shakespeare to apostrophise his sword:—
'I will hallow thee for this thy deed:
Ne'er shall this blood be wiped from thy point;
But thou shalt wear it as a herald's coat,
To emblaze the honour that thy master got.'
In blazoning, all tautology must be particularly avoided. Never repeat a tincture twice in the same blazon. Should it occur again, it must be described as of the first (or field), of the second, of the last, &c., as the case may be. At the same time, everything must be described with the utmost minuteness, so that a person, by reading the blazon, may be able to delineate the shield and its charges with unerring precision.
