- martlet

MARTLET. P. 34, f. 59. (ELVN)

MARTLET volant. P. 34, f. 60. (ELVN)

MARTLET, Merlion, or Martinet. French Merlette, or Merlot. Latin Mercula. Isa bird shaped like a swallow with a forked tail, and two tufts instead of legs. These tufts are shaped like erasures. P. 2, f. 45 ; P. 34, f. 59 ; and P. 47. It is the distinctive mark of the fourth house. P. 46. (ELVN)

Martlet рус. марлетта, мерлетта

фр. merlette англ. martlet; уст. marlion; т.ж. уп. marlet, merlion

< возм. ум. от merula – чёрный дрозд

Птица сходная с ласточкой, у которой отсутствуют ноги ниже колена. Эта фигура, обыденная среди гербовых фигур, обнаруживается в ранних гербовниках и встречается чаще во ранцузских гербах в Англии. Может быть окрашена любой тинктурой, включая горностаевый мех (см. пример в ст. Crescent). Часто располагаются в виде внутренней каймы (in orle, см.). В английской системе понижающих меток отличает герб четвёртого сына. А.Г. – Первоначально изображалась с клювом (?), который постепенно исчез.

«Gules, a fesse between six martlets or» – BEAUCHAMP, Powick, co. Worc.

«Sable, a martlet argent» – ADAMS, co. Pembroke.

«Roger de MERLEY, barrée d'argent et de goulz, a la bordure d'azure et merlots d'or en la bordur» – Roll, temp. HEN. III.

«Sire Roger de WATEVILL, de argent a iij chevrons de goules, a un merelot de sable» – Roll, temp. ED. II.

«Sire Henri de APPELBY de azure a vj merelos de or» – Ibid.

«Monsire TEMPEST d'argent une cheveron de gules entre trois merletts du sable» – Roll, temp. ED. III.

«Argent, five fusils conjoined in fesse gules, in chief two martletts respecting each other» – DAUBENE.

«Monsire de FENWIKE, port d'argent, chief gules, a vj merletts de l'une et l'autre[i.e. counterchanged]» – Ibid.

[parc]

merlette - martlet. Acc. to B, the merlette is a swallow, depicted without legs, and later us. without a beak: "The French martlet is not a swallow, but a duckling. According to Théodore Veyrin-Forrer, Précis d'héraldique, Paris, 1951, Arts Styles et Techniques, p114, «la canette représente la canne ou le canard; si elle est dépourvue du bec et des pattes, elle devient une merlette»". The reasons for the lack of beak and legs are either through artistic error in showing small charges, or a confusion with OF coupé, which does not mean cut off, but tufted, that is with feathers. In any case, "(heraldry) standardised, if it did not invent this conventionalised bird" (C). The connection with Fr. merle, blackbird, is not obvious, although it may have been intended to portray a little blackbird. The word merlette means literally a female blackbird, and in this sense it occurs several times in the civic heraldry of France. OED gives the meaning of martlet as swift, cypselus apus (from Gk.      , without feet), which, because it was rarely seen on the ground, was thought to have no feet. The swift in turn was confused with the swallow [thus the martlets, hirondelles, in the arms of Arundel, West Sussex]. The canette (qv.) is sometimes represented by the duckling and sometimes by the merlette. v. also alérion. FRGL