Quote Originally Posted by celticstudio View Post
Hi Bill,
The words An Ceann Cirean Cinnidh are Gaelic and are translated roughly as “The crest shown is the crest for the Chief (head) of the Clan” and should appear below the crest. I dealt with this by breaking the words in the middle An on one side Cirean on the other side of the end of the buckle. The same with the rest of the wording.
Other obscure heraldry about Clan crests.
The torse is supposed to be made of the two main colours of the Coat of Arm of the Chief and these are used to create the colours of the mantling. The ripped and torn material on either side of the Arms. These were originally supposed to be made of silk and were used to protect the poor guy inside from cooking in his armour! A little shade. To fit this in place they twisted it into a torse (sort of like the Arabs do on their long headdress. I suspect that this was noticed when the knights were on Crusades in the Middle east.) In heraldry the torse is ALWAYS supposed to be of only SIX sections. (Reference: The Art of Heraldry, page 298, 299) More obscure heraldic law. Here is the second part of this same heraldic law. The first colour is ALWAYS supposed to be the metal colour. (Reference: The Art of Heraldry, page 298, 299) Every colour represents a material. The shield in a Coat of Arms is always a metal or a fur. The first colour of the torse is ALWAYS the metal and the second colour is the other predominant colour in the Arms. (Reference: The Art of Heraldry, page 298, 299)
Hope this helps. Your artwork for Kincaid is great .. best I have seen. Very nice. There are a lot of "small" rules that are not described in the description and these "rules" are almost impossible to find to make things perfectly correct.
If I can assist anyone here I will be delighted to do so.. so that Scottish heraldry remains clean, clear and crisp! I have been doing this for 33 years!
All the best
Louis
Sorry, Louis -- I beat you to it.

T.