Design one is a winner. My second choice would be the shield in sinister base, but leaving the blue chief blank: Argent three eight-pointed stars two and one Gules a chief dovetailed Azure.
Kenneth Mansfield;95682 wrote:
Design one is a winner. My second choice would be the shield in sinister base, but leaving the blue chief blank: Argent three eight-pointed stars two and one Gules a chief dovetailed Azure.
I agreed with Kenneth. One and four are the best (#1 being my favorite) although I don’t really mind the lone star in the chief on #4. But it would definitely stil look great without the that star there as well.
My first thought for a devoutly Catholic carpenter, before reading past the initial posting, was some reference to St Joseph—tools, nails, wood, etc.
And learning that "Hagen" comes from the German for enclosure or fence suggests either (or both) a bordure or orle in the arms and an actual fence, along the lines of the tapestry Joe shows, in the crest—in both cases, with something else enclosed. The orle or bordure wouldn’t add anything but extra clutter to the shield designs shown so far, but a crest of an oak tree (or pine tree) within an enclosure might work,
The suggestion of a dovetailed partition line, as in the designs shown above, also makes sense for a master carpenter, with the double reference to both carpenters (Mr. Hagen & St. Joe). My favorite FWIW is the first one—tower with dovetailed chief & stars.
But would it be possible to substitute some sort of wooden tower, or possibly a stone (below) & wooden (above) tower? I’m picturing maybe an Eastern European structure of the sort I occasionally see in TV travelogues of visits to Eastern European towns & countryside—as more relevant to the carpenter’s trade and the family origins. The trick would be to find something simple enough to be easily drawn, readily identifiable & not overly busy.
All merely suggestions of course—grist for the mill (perhaps an unfortunate allusion in heraldry!) or better, options for a refrigerator test.
Looking a bit deeper, it seems that the Old High German word "Hag" is cognate with English "hedge" and refers to an enclosure surrounded by a hedge. Which was not like our ornamental boxwood hedge, but more like the hedgerows that Allied forces had to fight through in Normandy, or a palisade created by driving long stakes between rows of trees and weaving the branches between them. (In the Civil War, cedar hedges created with this same technique proved a very effective obstacle to troop movements on several battlefields in Virginia.)
So the tower may be very fine and appropriate as a charge in its own right, but not as a cant, if that’s what is being sought.
Joseph McMillan;95693 wrote:
Looking a bit deeper, it seems that the Old High German word "Hag" is cognate with English "hedge" and refers to an enclosure surrounded by a hedge. Which was not like our ornamental boxwood hedge, but more like the hedgerows that Allied forces had to fight through in Normandy, or a palisade created by driving long stakes between rows of trees and weaving the branches between them. (In the Civil War, cedar hedges created with this same technique proved a very effective obstacle to troop movements on several battlefields in Virginia.)
So the tower may be very fine and appropriate as a charge in its own right, but not as a cant, if that’s what is being sought.
Perhaps a chief or other portion of the field Argent (or Or) fretty wavy of Vert would create the sense of a semi-organic obstacle like a hedge.
Joseph McMillan;95693 wrote:
Looking a bit deeper, it seems that the Old High German word "Hag" is cognate with English "hedge" and refers to an enclosure surrounded by a hedge. Which was not like our ornamental boxwood hedge, but more like the hedgerows that Allied forces had to fight through in Normandy, or a palisade created by driving long stakes between rows of trees and weaving the branches between them. (In the Civil War, cedar hedges created with this same technique proved a very effective obstacle to troop movements on several battlefields in Virginia.)
So the tower may be very fine and appropriate as a charge in its own right, but not as a cant, if that’s what is being sought.
Thank you for the further information on the name. I’m going to have to play with the design and see how I can incorporate the proper meaning into the design.