A Harpy displayed and crowned. German version.
Azure, a harpy with her wings disclosed, her hair flotant, or, armed of the same. This coat existed in Huntingdon Church in Guillam’s time.
The arms of the City of Nuremberg are: azure, a harpy displayed armed, crined and crowned, or. It occurs as the city device as early as 1243. In German heraldry it is termed jungfraundler.
Shield of Nüremberg.
A creature very similar to the harpy (a combination of several badges), was one of the favourite devices of Richard III., viz., a falcon with the head of a maiden holding the white rose of York.
The Heraldic Pelican
| “Then sayd the pellycane When my byrats be slayne With my bloude I them reuyue (revive) Scrypture doth record, The same dyd our Lord, And rose from deth to lyue.” Skelton, “Armory of Birds.” |
The character ascribed to the pelican is nearly as fabulous as that of the phœnix. From a clumsy, gluttonous, piscivorous water-bird, it was by the growth of legends transformed into a mystic emblem of Christ, whom Dante terms “Nostro Pelicano.” St. Hieronymus gives the story of the pelican restoring its young ones destroyed by serpents as an illustration of the destruction of man by the old Serpent, and his salvation by the blood of Christ.