A New Website with Articles on Heraldry

Heraldry enthusiast, President (for thirteen years) of Norsk Heraldisk Forening, and friend, Hans Cappelen of Oslo, Norway, has created a new website onto which he is uploading his articles about heraldry and flags to share with the rest of the world.

The page is entitled, appropriately, Heraldikk og flagg (Heraldry and flags).

If you have an interest in Scandinavian heraldry and vexillology, or even more specifically Norwegian heraldry and vexillology, please drop by his page and see some of the articles he has uploaded there. Many of them are written in English, or at the very least have an English summary (very helpful for folks like myself whose comprehension of Norwegian is, alas, minimal). And, of course, there are pictures to help.

Heraldry and flags can be found on-line at http://www.cappelen-krefting.no/hans/index.html (I have also added this URL to "Websites of Heraldic Interest" in the left-hand column of this blog.)

Enjoy!

Norway, Part 10-C: The Posthallen Concluded

Concluding our review of the arms carved on the exterior of the Posthallen in Oslo, here are the fifth and sixth columns of arms, starting at the top of Column 5:

Bergen

Meløy (maybe.  Meløy comes closest to the depiction on the Posthallen that I've been able to find.)

Flekkefjord

Arendal (The modern arms of Arendal are on the blue and silver shield.)

Risør

Column 6:

Tromsø (probably.  The carved arms on the Posthallen have some details that do not appear in the modern arms of Tromsø, but nothing else I've found matches better.)

I have not found this coat of arms.  I suspect that the modern arms used by the community have been greatly simplified from this depiction or changed completely.

Vardø

Bodø  (The modern, much simplified arms of Bodø are the golden sun on the red shield here.)

Kristiansund

And there you have it!  Six long carved columns, each containing five different coats of arms, for a wonderful - and large! - display of heraldry.

Norway, Part 10-B: The Posthallen Continued

Continuing our review of the arms carved (in granite, I believe) on the exterior of the Posthallen in Oslo, here are the third and fourth columns, starting at the top of Column 3:

Oslo

Drammen

Kongsberg

Horten

Tønsberg (The current arms are shown in the blue seal.)

Column 4:

Trondheim

Molde

Ålesund

This is another coat which I have been unable to identify.  There appears to be an anchor between two tree stumps, with a horizon line and mountains to either side, but I've found nothing like this among the current arms of Norwegian cities.    

Lillehammer

Next time, the last two columns of arms on the Posthallen!

Norway, Part 10-A: The Posthallen

The single best (or, at the very least, the biggest) display of heraldry that I saw in Oslo was actually too big to be photographed in a single picture.  Admittedly, this is at least partly because in was very large, and partly because it was on the end of the building which faced a narrow street, so there was no really good way to get a picture that would take in the whole thing and still let you see what it is.  (You can get an idea of the full scope of what I'm talking about from the picture of the end of the building taken at night with the columns of arms all lit up, which can be found at http://soylen.no/Eiendommer/POSTHALLEN.aspx) Still, this shot of one of the columns should give you an idea of how impressive the entire display is.  As you can see, this column (and the other five) is more than twenty feet in length.

The entire display, on the end of the Posthallen (it used to be the main post office building, but now contains a very nice restaurant and other retailers) consists of six cast or carved columns, each containing five coats of arms arranged vertically with decorative elements in between each coat.  Because of the sheer number of arms, I’m going to break the entire display into three posts.  This post will start at the top of the left-hand column, then moving down to the bottom before going to the top of the second column.  The next post will begin with the arms at the top of the third column and go through the bottom of the fourth column.  The third post will do the same for the fifth and sixth columns.

I’ve been able to identify most of the coats of arms on these columns.  A few identifications are tentative, and there are three which I have been completely unable to identify.  Based on the fact that some of these communities have changed their arms since the time these columns were carved, I expect that they simply do not match at all what the cities are using now, and that is why I’ve been unable to find them.  Where the carved arms here show the older arms, I have also included a picture of the modern arms.

So here we go:

Column 1:

Kristiansand

Porsgrunn

Skien

Farsund (probably; or possibly Lindas [the red shield], though I consider that less likely)

Sandefjord

Column 2:

Hamar

Halden

Sarpsborg (the modern arms are shown on the yellow shield) 

Fredrikstad (the modern arms are shown on the lowest shield)

This is one of those that I have not been able to identify.  Sorry!  I did try.

Next time, columns 3 and 4!