The Violet Herald
The Violet Herald | |
---|---|
GreiiN:375 | |
Assumed | 15th November of 2022 |
Country of Origin | America |
Tradition | Iberian heraldry |
Aliases | LaVioleta#3105 TheVioletHerald |
- Escutcheon
- Sable, a chevron between two pomegranates slipped and leaved and a Moorish gorgon's head cabossed Argent.
- Crest
- A Moorish Artemisian melusine erect affronty, head irradiated Or, maintaining in each hand a Spanish black pomegranate slipped and leaved all proper.
- Motto
- "Crezco E Ilumino Mi Huerta" - 'I Grow and Light My Orchard'
Symbolism
The armiger loves reptiles. Medusa was done so wrong to them in Greek mythology, and according to a version of the Judeochristian creation myth, Lilith was the serpent who went back to the Garden of Eden to advise Eve to eat the fruit (pomegranate) from the Tree of Knowledge. Pomegranates have been cultivated for thousands of years, including in ancient Egypt. The armiger is a descendant of the Bamileke tribe in Cameroon, which can trace its origin back to the region known as Egypt. So her earliest Bamileke ancestors were Egyptian, and they migrated to modern-day Cameroon several centuries ago. The pomegranate is also a symbol of fertility that predates Christianity. (The armiger is an agnostic atheist.) It also looks yonic (meaning that it resembles a vulva), especially as it is typically drawn in heraldic art. Over the past couple of years the armiger's life has changed quite a bit and her love for herself has deepened immeasurably. She has become very maternal toward herself and though she is not sure why, she attributes maternal and self-preservative qualities to Medusa.
Granada was also the last Moorish stronghold in Spain before the Catholics reconquered it, and Spanish is the armiger's favorite language. Funny enough, the black pomegranate is a premium variety of pomegranate that was recently developed by Spanish growers.
Though her favorite color is purple (obviously lol), the armiger wanted to use sable as the background because she is obsessed with creation myths from all of the world. One common theme is that in the beginning, there was a dark, watery void from which all of existence was birthed. Her favorite Greek goddess is Nyx, the primordial Goddess of Night (she has never read the House of Night books, this was from independent research) of whom even Zeus was afraid.
While she is not Christian, the Black Madonna and Child is her favorite piece of Christian iconography, further tying into her use of sable.
She made the charges and ordinary argent for contrast and to fit the Greek aesthetic. Also, all colors of visible light combine to make white, while if all pigments are mixed together something approximate to black is produced. So it is all-encompassing.
The crest, designed to match her motto, features an idealized version of herself, illuminating and growing fruit in her own little corner of the universe. She reminds the armiger of Lilith in the Garden of Eden (and both Medusa and Lilith have been done wrong by their respective religious lore). The Spanish black pomegranate is the most beautiful and valuable fruit in the armiger's opinion (from what she's read it is one of the more elite crops on the Spanish fruit market), and she is the kind of person to readily eat the fruit from a Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
The two tails of the melusine represent the light and dark sides of herself. Mermaids, a similar creature, are stigmatized in across the modern-day African continent due to Christian influence and the armiger is against that negative connotation. The melusine's breasts are exposed to represent the fact that the armiger is not ashamed, but rather proud, of who she is as an individual. The two tails represent her dark and light sides.
The motto is in Spanish, their second and favourite language.
Badge
Blazon: A Moorish gorgon head, with eyes enflamed proper and snakes vert and langued Gules, slipped and leaved Vert.