Fictitious Heraldry?

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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Joseph McMillan
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13 August 2013 19:53
 

Not quite sure where to put this thread…

There are several cases of heraldry in American fiction: Mark Twain’s hilariously bad coat of arms for Jim in Huckleberry Finn, Hawthorne’s "Sable a letter A Gules" in the Scarlet Letter, the arms of Montresor in Poe’s "Cask of Amontillado," showing a foot crushing a snake whose teeth are embedded in the heel.

 

But working on the Rs in the Roll of Early American Arms, it occurred to me that one might imagine a coat of arms for Captain Rhett Butler of Charleston from Gone with the Wind.

 

I don’t remember Margaret Mitchell telling us much about Capt Butler’s family background, but his name is a combination of two old and prominent South Carolina families, both of which were armigerous. In fact, I believe there were two families of Butlers with different arms, but I will assume that Rhett was a scion of the family of Maj Gen William Butler, mainly because his arms are easier to draw than those of Sen. Pierce Butler. Gen Butler bore Azure a chevron between three covered cups Or.

 

The Rhetts bore Or a cross engrailed Sable.

 

Assuming that somewhere back up the line, a Rhett heiress brought a quartering of the family arms along with the use of the surname as a given name, Capt Rhett Butler undoubtedly would have borne Butler quartering Rhett.

 

http://www.americanheraldry.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1233&stc=1&d=1376437914

 

With the crest, "A ram Sable," and the motto "Re vera, cara mea, mea nil refert."

 

Any others?

 
Kenneth Mansfield
 
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Kenneth Mansfield
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13 August 2013 20:37
 

Wonderful.

And timely for me since this week I’ve been discovering where my g-g-grandfather (1st Reg., Georgia State Line) was engaged in the Atlanta Campaign. And where my son’s g-g-g-grandfather was, too, but on the other side (77th Reg., Pennsylvania Volunteers).

 
 
JamesD
 
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JamesD
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14 August 2013 07:01
 

Joseph McMillan;100186 wrote:

... and the motto "Re vera, cara mea, mea nil refert."

Very good wink

 
Guy Power
 
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Guy Power
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14 August 2013 12:23
 

I like the Arms!  They look authentic and traditional.


Joseph McMillan;100186 wrote:

...and the motto "Re vera, cara mea, mea nil refert."


I love the motto!  But it’s not as strong as the English.  [trans: The fact is, my dear, it no does not matter to me"].

Google Translate [unreliable source] says it is:

 

Dic mihi solum [facta] non dederit damnare

 

Perhaps one of our Latinists could render it properly.

 

"Damn" was such a strong word in 1939!  My dad recalls seeing it when it first came out in 1940.  When he got home, his mother (who knew) asked him what was the last thing Rhett said?  Dad, nine years old, was too embarassed and shocked to repeat the word "damn."

 

Grandmother got a big kick out of it.

 

 

—Guy

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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Joseph McMillan
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14 August 2013 16:57
 

I stole it from a website selling a t-shirt purporting to be a Latin translation of Rhett’s farewell line.  I figured it wasn’t quite on target, but it was too late last night to look any harder.

 
Alexander Liptak
 
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Alexander Liptak
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18 August 2013 05:53
 

Could be add an "Attributed and Fictional Heraldry" section to the site? We can include the arms from literature, film and video games even, as well as add a critique and point out the errors. The first glimpse of heraldry that I can recall came from The Legend of Zelda video games, and attracting youngsters to the site with such topics could help correct several misconceptions that float around about heraldry while they read up on something that interests them.

I will provide the artwork for any Zelda-related articles. grin