Greetings to the Heralds of Lochac!

You are correct, there was no CAMEL issued in January. Sorry, I had an
attack of Life. However, we move on to February, and…

The December Letter of Acceptances and Returns has been issued –
https://heraldry.sca.org/loar/

For Lochac, we see the following acceptances:

Aelfgar of the South. Device. Argent, a ram salient sable atop a mount gules.
“Nice device!”

Agnes Graye. Device change. Argent goutty de sang, a raven rising sable. The submitter’s previous device, Argent, a bend gules between three corbies displayed sable, is retained as a badge.
“Nice device!”

Aífe ingen Echdach. Name and device. Argent, a triskelion of spirals azure and a bordure azure platy. Alternate name Aífe in Gai Dara.

Annabelle of Adora. Name and device. Per chevron invected purpure and argent, two unicorns combattant argent and a cross fleury azure. Badge. Quarterly azure and purpure, a cross fleury within and conjoined to an annulet argent.

Averill of Ambledune. Name and device. Barry wavy azure and argent, three frogs sejant vert.

Conrad Sturmere. Device change. Argent, three skulls sable.
“Nice device!”

Daine Albanach. Name and device. Azure, a lotus blossom in profile
between four mullets of four points in cross argent.

Denise of Driffield. Name and device. Gules, a rose argent barbed and
seeded proper, on a chief embattled Or two ermine spots sable.

Dragana Rosa. Device. Or, a ladybug proper, on a chief indented gules
three daisies proper.

Elizabeth of Adora. Name and device. Gyronny gules and argent, a dragon sejant and in base a crescent sable. Badge. (Fieldless) In pale a dragon’s foot couped inverted sable sustaining a crescent pendant argent.

Isabella de Bordeaux. Badge. (Fieldless) On a sun vert a bunch of
grapes Or.

Mikha’il ibn Iskandar al-Tayyib. Name and device. Purpure, on a chevron
sable fimbriated between three eyes argent irised brown proper, four
eyes argent irised brown proper. Badge. (Fieldless) A griffin
regardant coward sable transfixed by an arrow bendwise sinister inverted
gules.
“Nice badge!”

Norman Douglas. Name and device. Per pale sable and Or, in pale a wheel counterchanged and a heart gules.
“Nice Scots name for the 1460s!”

Ottilia Simion. Device. Gules, a boar’s head erased Or and in base three edelweiss in fess proper.
“It appears we have registered edelweiss proper a number of times but
have yet to define it. We do so now: edelweiss proper is defined as
argent seeded Or.”

Politarchopolis, Barony of. Household name Company of Bowmen of
Politarchopolis, Badge for Company of Bowmen of Politarchopolis. Gules, in fess a sheaf of three arrows sustained by a griffin’s leg erased fesswise argent.

Primislava Wandrownyczka. Badge. (Fieldless) A barnacle goose tree vert fructed Or within and conjoined to a four-lobed quadrate cornice argent.

Seraphina le Dauncer. Reblazon of device. Per chevron gules and azure, two East Asian dragons passant respectant in chevron and a griffin passant Or.

Torcaill mac Léoid mhic Íomhair. Badge. (Fieldless) On a sun argent a bull’s head caboshed sable.

Ulric of Ambledune. Household name Ambledune House and badge. Azure, a bow fesswise argent.
“Nice badge!”

Congratulations to all.

We have a new King and Queen, as you are all no doubt aware.
Crownanation was the proverbial swan event – relaxed and gracious on the
surface, and an enormous amount of paddling, back-paddling, untangling
of fishing line, kicking the hungry pike in the head, turning frogs back
at the last minute and even more paddling furiously underneath. I can
thoroughly recommend never doing a Coronation with less than 12 hours
to work it all out, and if you have to, read all the appropriate
ceremonies and preparation lists before hand. But it is all done, and
hopefully the reign of King Rowland and Queen Tailltu will be smooth.
(BTW, a helpful tip for pronouncing the Queen’s name – “towel-t-yew”. I
remember it by thinking “she’s like a tewit-tewoo owl: t’owl-t’yoo”.)

While we are on the subject of Royalty, you may find that, given the
limits on travel, you are heralding a Virtual Court in which awards are
given. Each set of Royalty does award notifications differently, but you
should be submitting a CHAF (Court Herald Award Form) unless the Crown
specifically states that they will do it. Virtual Court is one of the
many reasons why the Crown doesn’t sign the form as required. Please
make sure that if the Crown’s signature is not on the form, you include
a note to say why, e.g. “awarded in virtual court by King Tumty and
Queen Tum, signed on their behalf by Baron Ecks.” Remember folks, a
record you can’t work out in ten years’ time is not a good record.

Moving on, in my last CAMEL I put a call out for applications for five
unfilled deputy positions. I am thrilled to announce that four of the
five have been filled. I would therefore like to announce the following
Crux Deputies:
Coffyn Herald (Crux’s drop dead deputy and second in command) – ffride
wlfsdotter
Bombarde Herald (ceremony and court) – Eliana Darragone
Mortar Herald (website) – Law Ardrossen
Powder Horn Herald (records management) – Uberto Renaldi
My thanks to them for taking on these roles, and hopefully we’ll quickly
shift a back log of tasks!

We still need to fill the role of Mangonel Herald (silent/sign heraldry).
This is something I am eager to see progress. We don’t think of sign
language as being “an essential” because currently we don’t have a body
of members who need it, but being inclusive means that we need to be
proactive, rather than waiting until we need something. After all, you
don’t pick up a sword for the first time just before you enter Crown
tourney – this is how we should think about inclusion.

If you are interested, even if it’s just to be part of a team developing
a body of sign language for us to use, rather than the role of Mangonel
Herald itself, please let me know.

Next, I’m introducing a new concept for Crux’s deputies, that of “Macer
Deputies”. These are intended to be a small group of people who want to
learn more about how to do various jobs. Canon, Powder Horn, Quarrel,
Rocket and Mortar all need specific skills to be able to do their jobs,
and while there are many people who are more than competent to do them,
it can be intimidating to volunteer to take on a role for a job you
don’t really understand. With that in mind, I would like to announce the
first of the Macer Deputies, Shinjo Takame, who will be working with
Canon and Powder Horn Heralds to learn how the canon lore system works.
If anyone would like to learn from Rocket or Quarrel how their jobs
work, please let me know (I’m not calling for helpers for Mortar yet as
the role has just changed and he will need to find his feet for a few
months first.) And if anyone has idea for (registerable!) heraldic
titles for these “small arms” deputies, post them to the Facebook page
for discussion.

Next on the long list of Things To Talk About – a quick reminder about
confidentiality. In both a recent Kingdom Officers meeting AND a
Principal Heralds meeting the issue of legal requirements for
confidentiality came up. There have been no complaints, but it is
important that we all remember, occasionally as heralds we have access
to private information – mundane contact details, etc. – and we are
legally obliged to keep any personal information we are given access to
private.

At the moment, we have no restrictions on who can act as a consulting
herald, and there is no formal requirement of them. However, I am
looking into whether or not we should be required to sign
confidentiality forms (essentially a legal recognition that we
understand what the relevant laws regarding data privacy are and a
signed agreement to abide by them) – if we are, we will need to start
formally registering consulting heralds. I will keep you informed.

Looking over the Roster of Heralds, I notice that the majority of us
(including me!) are still ranked as Macers. The test to promote to
Pursuivant is not onerous – if you know the basics, you should be able
to pass it (and it’s an open book test). For those, like me, who hate
written tests, Paddy Chaine Shot has said he is willing to do it as a
verbal test online if you prefer. So let’s see how many people we can
get promoted in the next month.

And with that in mind, please have a look at the roster of heralds. If
there is someone there listed as a Pursuivant who you think is
particularly skilled in several areas of heraldry, please send me a
recommendation for their promotion.

Which brings me to my final point (phew!). As many of you are aware, the
College of Heralds has a mixed reputation in the Kingdom, with many
people seeing it as opaque at best, and difficult and obstructive at
worst. While I believe this reputation is undeserved, it does have seeds
in some real issues, and there is a lot we can do to improve things. One
of the first things I’d like to start with is to remind people of the
large amount of positive work we do, and I’d like to do this via my
option to write a “From the Herald” each month in Pegasus. Every month,
I’d like to be able to point out and congratulate heralds across the
kingdom for the things they are doing.

I’m going to be asking Group Heralds especially to step up here, but
anyone can do this (and I encourage you all to do so) – if someone has
done something of note, please let me know so I can share the news. The
kinds of things I am thinking of – someone heralded their first
tourney, or their first court, or acted as a submissions herald for the
first time, or saw the first item they consulted on has been passed, or
they hit a milestone – 10th submission, 25th submission, 50th
submission, 10 years since their first court, taught their first or
their twentieth class on some aspect of heraldry – anything that you
think is worthy of notice, PLEASE let me know. So much amazing work is
done by the heralds of Lochac, and so much of that work is rarely
noticed, let alone appreciated. Let’s fix that together.

A reminder that Baronial, Shire and Crux Deputy reports are due to me by
the 15th.

Long live Lochac!

Annys Crux