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Quarterly Or and Gules, four Quatrefoils counterchanged.
Lewis A. Nowitz, 6 December 2000
The German blazon provides "Geviert von rot und Gold mit vier durchgehenden eingeschnürten
Tatzenkreuzen in gewechselten Farben."
Pascal Gross, 6 December 2000
I think perhaps the "durchgehenden" in fact does need to be included here. I have no
idea whether a quatrefoil, when it's the only charge on a coat of arms, would, by default, take up the
whole field like, for example, a St. Andrews cross would. The interesting optical punning
which creates the tiling effect certainly depends on it. Such a quatrefoil would then presumably become
a Tatzenkreuz. Will someone be kind enough to translate "Tatzenkreuz" (and "durchgehend"
as a standard heraldic term)?
Lewis A. Nowitz, 6 December 2000
Tatzenkreuz = Cross formy (French: croix pattée); durchgehend = vetu or ("not
gold") throughout.
Jarig Bakker, 7 December 2000
So the charge is a cross, not a saltire or flower. Could've fooled me. Did, in fact.
So: Quarterly Gules and Or, four Crosses formy throughout counterchanged?
Ole Andersen, 7 December 2000
I suggest not blazoning this in traditional terms. It is clearly a modern design of an elegant
mathematical nature (interlaced circles and all that)
which might better be blazoned in Cartesian coordinates. Try this:
A square flag of side four units quarterly or and gules, origin at the center. Centered at coordinates
(-1,2), (1,2), (-2,1), (0,1), (2,1), (0,-1), (0,1), (-2,-1), (0,-1), (2,-1), (-1,-2), (1,-2) twelve circles
of unit radius, counterchanged.
Lewis A. Nowitz, 8 December 2000
I found in Neubecker 1977 a way to blazon the figure composed when
the cross's arms are so splayed that they join at the edges (more so than in the arms of Giffers),
so that the cross is no longer distinguishable and only four small portions of the field are left visible:
"four almonds in saltire".
Santiago Dotor, 14 December 2000
Indeed! That is exactly what that is. I knew that there should be something like "four (or quatre-)
'thingies' in saltire" but I was missing the term for the shape of "the eyes".
Almond seems a very good one.
Željko Heimer, 14 December 2000