The Harpy of classic story appears in heraldry in the shapes of eagles with the faces and breasts of women, and this appears to have been the only figure, with one exception, which combines the human form with that of a bird, for the bird-headed beings of the Assyrian bas-reliefs and other forms of Eastern art were not among those adopted into our heraldry, though there are a few instances in German work. The exceptions are the swans with women’s faces that in the fourteenth century decorated some of the hallings, of hangings of tapestry or embroidery, as especially emphasized versions of the chivalric symbol of womanhood that the swan was considered to be. For this reason it was adopted as a badge at a time which assiduously fashioned its manners after the traditionary chivalry of King Arthur and his knights, and when every kind of poetic and symbolic heraldry reached its fullest development.
Fish.—Of heraldic fish the Dolphin may perhaps be considered the most distinguished, mainly from its association in former times with the heir to the throne of France; but it is occasionally met with in our heraldry, generally perhaps as typical of fish in general, as in the arms of the Fishmongers Company of London. It is represented with its body curved, and is then said to be embowed, and it also occurs in the other position referred to below. When it is blazoned proper its colour, heraldically, is green with red fins and tail.
Other fish occur as punning allusions to their owners’ names, e.g. the Lucies (pike) of the family of Lucy, whose arms are one of the quarterings of the Duke of Northumberland.
A fish when placed horizontally across the shield is blazoned naiant, or swimming, and when perpendicular as though breathing on the surface it is hauriant.
Human Figures.—The human figure appears heraldically as representing religious or symbolic persons, and in combination with other forms it makes those composite figures which express a conjunction of symbolic ideas. A woman’s head and breasts joined to the body of a lion made the well-known Sphinx, a figure closely associated with Egypt, to which country and to services rendered therein it usually alludes in modern heraldry. The Greek sphinx is composed of the head and bust of a woman joined to the body and legs of a dog, and in addition is winged. Its occurrence is rare in heraldry, a recent instance being the Greek sphinx sejant, which is the crest of the University of Leeds.
Printer’s Mark of Grimm & Wirsung, Augsburg, 1521. From a volume by Erasmus. Hans Weidlitz.
Arms of Schwingshärtein, a Nuremberg family. German, ca. 1580.
The device is a punning one, the figure waving hair being in allusion to the name of the family.
