Page:The Ancestor Number 1.djvu/95

 THE ANCESTOR 55 rule. A man*s hand is drawn cut ofF at the wrist and palm forward, but couped at the wrist and appaumee are needless, nor need it be noted whether the hand be dexter or sinister save in a case where the punning blazon of such a name as Poingdestre must be brought in. Malmaynes should surely have left hands, but they are not found so in old figures. We recognize that our heraldry rose in the French tongue, and many of its words must always savour of it, but let us strive to use our own broad speech wherever it may displace a pedantry of the decadence. When words of French root must serve us, let us follow old authority in Englishing their form as far as may be. The old French pate soon became paty in English, so let us avoid making it modernized French as patee and fly the meaningless illiteracy ot pattee. Let nouee be English knotted, and volant flying. Garhs and annulets are English sheaves and rings. Clad is a better word than vested^ and burning explains itself more clearly than incensed. If we have a tooth for strange words let them remind us of old English pedantries of the chase and the wold, and of the furniture of the foray or hawking party. An antiquary may well defend the ancient word from the latinism or modernism which would devour it. Our parrot may rest as a popinjay, the fir-cone may remain an English ' pineapple ' and the mole a moldiwarp, and the panache of Mr. Boutell's chapter on crests may be again the ' bush of feathers ' of the old knights. Above all let us cherish the punning word, Latin, French or English, which explains so many strange charges in the shield. Harts must be harts for us in a shield of Hartwell, but bucks and deer in shields of Buxton and Dereham. The birding bolt of Boson is a hoson^ and the staff in Palmer's arms a palmer's staff, although the same staff in Burdon's arms is a punning bordoun. The cats in Pusey's arms and the cat in Pudsey's crest should all be pussycats to the English blazoner, and Dymoke the Champion has certainly a moke's ears for his crest although the family now make the ears of the more genteel fur of the hare. Almost every out of the way charge conceals your pun. Wunhale's three pillows hint at some ancient English word for a pillow allied to wonne a pleasure and hals the neck ; Vane's three gaundets are the old gauns or wauns^ whilst Wilkinson's unicorn or lycorne certainly shows forth that Wilkinson, for the better playing upon his name, split it into Wil-lycorne-son.