Positions

Introduction

The positions an animal, bird or fish can take on a shield have their own vocabularies to describe them. This covers both the gross position (e.g. passant for a lion walking across the shield) and the details (e.g. reguardant if it is looking behind). Birds can be volant (flying) for example, while a fish could be naiant (swimming horizontally). Different groups of animals have their own terms, viz:

• lions
• deer etc.
• birds
• fishes

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© Gill Smith 1997