My poem "Aluminum" (based on the element Aluminium or Aluminum, on a project for the "Periodic Table of Poetry") contains some heraldic references and can be read at http://web.archive.org/web/20060627015444/http://www.superdeluxe.com/elemental/aluminum.htm . It will be included in my upcoming book of poetry Where Were the Shadows Before Your Vote?
"Deep in those antic inns…"
Did you mean "antique inns", perchance?
"Antic" is an old spelling of "antique," with the connotation of being a little outmoded, weirdly out of date, that sort of thing.
I stand corrected.
My read is that it means grotesque and has a distinct origin from antique. According to OED etymology:
[app. ad. It. antico, but used as equivalent to It. grottesco, f. grotta, ‘a cauerne or hole vnder grounde’ (Florio), orig. applied to fantastic representations of human, animal, and floral forms, incongruously running into one another, found in exhuming some ancient remains (as the Baths of Titus) in Rome, whence extended to anything similarly incongruous or bizarre: see GROTESQUE. Cf. Serlio Architettura (Venice 1551) IV. lf. 70a: ‘seguitare le uestigie de gli antiqui Romani, li quali costumarono di far..diuerse bizarrie, che si dicono grottesche.’ Apparently, from this ascription of grotesque work to the ancients, it was in English at first called antike, anticke, the name grotesco, grotesque, not being adopted till a century later. Antic was thus not developed in Eng. from ANTIQUE, but was a distinct use of the word from its first introduction. Yet in 17th c. it was occas. written antique, a spelling proper to the other word.]