Fictitious & Symbolic Creatures in Art: With Special Reference to Their Use in British Heraldry

In Short

John Vinycomb’s study explores the chimerical beasts that populate British heraldry, charting their origins from classical myth, sacred art, natural history, and folklore. The text meticulously inventories creatures like dragons, cherubim, griffins, and mermaids, explaining both their physical blazonry on shields and their underlying symbolic meanings. By contextualizing how medieval heralds transformed poetical inventions and biological errors into enduring blazons, the book bridges art history and armorial lore. It has endured as an essential handbook for artists, historians, and armory enthusiasts seeking to understand the deep symbolic language beneath historical coats of arms.

The Story

The volume opens by establishing the vital role that fictitious and symbolic beings play within heraldic art. The author observes that while standard heraldry texts often offer stiff illustrations and thin descriptions, these imaginary creatures were adopted with precise intent. The narrative of the text moves systematically through the categories of mythic entities, beginning with celestial figures. It examines how ancient Egyptian and Assyrian winged forms influenced Jewish and Christian iconography, tracing the evolution of angels, cherubim, and seraphim from ancient biblical text to Renaissance paintings and modern heraldic charges.

From heavenly spirits, the work transitions into the terrifying monsters of land and sky. It tracks the ubiquitous legend of the dragon across global cultures, from classical Greek battles and Asian imperial ensigns to Christian legends of St. George and local British folk tales like the Lambton Worm. The author explains how physical discoveries—such as fossilized prehistoric bones—frequently gave birth to terrible local legends of monstrous beasts. Associated creatures like the hydra, the serpent, and the multi-formed chimera are similarly analyzed, showing how solar myths and classical fables of healing or guardianship were codified into permanent family crests.

The survey then turns to hybrid quadrupeds and fabulous birds. The author examines the unicorn, detailing the immense value once placed on its supposed poison-testing horn by medieval monarchies, alongside the fierce griffin, the sphinx, and the self-immolating phoenix. Factual inaccuracies in early natural history are highlighted to demonstrate how erroneous zoology—such as misrepresenting an elephant's joints or creating footless birds like alerions—became standard heraldic convention. Exotic heraldic variants of real animals, including the "musion" (a wild tiger-cat) and the legendary "liver" cormorant of Liverpool, are given thorough anatomical and historical profiles.

Finally, the text plunges into the oceanic realm, examining sea-gods, mermaids, and classical dolphins. Classical divinities like Poseidon and the Nereides are shown to represent the dual nature of the ocean, transitioning into heraldic sea-monsters such as sirens and the two-tailed Mélusine. The book concludes with the sacred and poetic history of the dolphin, connecting Apollo’s legendary marine transformations and Arion’s rescue to its widespread use on classic coinage and modern coats of arms.

How It Unfolds

The celestial origins The work begins by exploring winged human forms, tracing their artistic evolution from Egyptian goddesses and Nineveh marbles to Christian angels. It details how early artists used brilliant pigments, gold leaf, and specific garments like the tunica to convey unearthly attributes on heraldic shields and funereal achievements.

The march of dragons Moving into terrifying monsters, the text traces the widespread lineage of the dragon from classic myths of Bellerophon to British saintly legends. It contrasts western dragon-slaying tales with Asian imperial symbolism, noting how regional fossil discoveries often birthed local dragon lore.

Hybrids of earth and air The focus shifts to land-bound and soaring chimeras, including the unicorn, griffin, sphinx, and phoenix. The narrative outlines their symbolic functions—such as the unicorn's horn serving as an antidote to poison—and details how heralds integrated these mythic guardians into royal coats of arms.

Curiosities of blazonry The author inventories specialized heraldic variants, such as footless alerions, martlets, and ferocious wildcats like the "musion." He details how linguistic puns, family name anagrams, and mistakes in natural history created unique armorial traditions across European houses.

Monsters of the deep The survey finishes among marine divinities and sea-creatures, detailing Poseidon, sirens, mermaids, and sacred dolphins. It explains how classical ocean myths were adapted into modern heraldic crests, seals, and municipal badges to symbolize maritime power and protection.

The People

Because this work is a scholarly study of heraldic iconography, its central "characters" are the symbolic creatures themselves and the early artists and heralds who shaped them.

• The Dragon: The most widely spread of all heraldic monsters, seeking to represent raw power, sovereignty, and dangerous obstacles. It faces relentless opposition from legendary heroes and saints who seek to conquer it, ultimately ending up transformed from a feared beast into a proud emblem of royal and municipal identity.
• The Cherub: A celestial figure seeking to embody pure spiritual intelligence, divine love, and swiftness. Hindered by the ambiguity of ancient scriptural descriptions, it is reduced by heralds through the figure of synecdoche into a floating, winged infant head placed atop shields and funereal achievements.
• The Unicorn: A noble woodland creature seeking to act as the defender of other beasts against venom. Beset by the greed of kings and religious houses who coveted its reputed poison-testing horn, it ends up elevated to a prized place among royal jewels and heraldic supporters.
• The Heraldic Artist: The historical creator seeking to depict mythical beasts with spiritual vigor and accuracy. Hampered by a lack of real menageries, meagre reference books, and reliance on absurd medieval natural histories, he ends up perpetuating zoological errors that become fixed heraldic tradition.

In Its Own Voice

"Many of the ideas of the writers of that period were undoubtedly derived from still earlier sources, namely, classic story, sacred and legendary art, and the marvellous tales of early travellers; others were the coinage of their own fancies and their fears."

The author explains the diverse historical origins that fed into medieval heraldic design.

"With 'veracious' histories of this description, is it to be wondered at that such beings as those referred to were made use of in heraldry and accepted as types or emblems of some particular quality in man?"

The text reflects gently on how ancient errors in natural history were accepted and translated into human symbolism.

"The dolphin is the most classic of fishes, the favourite of Apollo, and sacred to that bright divinity, deriving his name from the oracular Delphi, that mysterious spot, 'the earth's umbilicus,' the very centre of the world..."

The author highlights the deep classical heritage behind one of heraldry's most favored aquatic emblems.

What It's Really About

At its core, the book investigates how human imagination transforms fear, mystery, and spiritual ideals into a codified visual language. It is less about real zoology than about the human impulse to assign moral and symbolic meaning to physical forms. By examining how poets, early travelers, and medieval heralds drew upon classical mythology and sacred texts, the book demonstrates how errors and legends solidify into formal tradition. Underneath its inventory of horns, wings, and scales, the work explores the transition of wild, terrifying folklore into disciplined art, showing how ancient cultural anxieties were tamed, structured, and preserved on the protective shields of British armory.

Why Read It Today

This volume will deeply satisfy heraldic researchers, artists, fantasy writers, and enthusiasts of mythic lore. Reading it feels like stepping into an antiquarian workshop filled with old blazons, classical poetry, and forgotten bestiaries. The prose is clean, clear, and engagingly precise, blending meticulous historical cross-referencing with a quiet, dry wit regarding the absurdity of early naturalists.

The book does present a few mild reading hurdles for modern audiences. Its structure is encyclopedic rather than narrative, requiring readers to appreciate individual entries rather than a single plot line. It also assumes a basic familiarity with classical literature, biblical passages, and traditional heraldic terms like blazoned, couchan, gorged, or passant. Additionally, it reflects late Victorian antiquarian attitudes, occasionally quoting older English and foreign language inventories in their original form. Yet these elements only add to its authentic period charm, leaving the reader with a profound appreciation for the rich visual language hidden within historical coats of arms.