The King of Iceland
I recently received an email from Tómas Albertsson concerning my illustration of the arms of the King of Iceland, which appears in the Wijnbergen Roll, WN1306, where it is blazoned:
le Roi dillande
burelé (12) d'argent et d'azur au chef d'or au lion de gueules brochant tenant une hache du même
in English,
Barry of twelve argent and azure a chief or overall a lion rampant holding a battle axe in pale gules
Tómas questioned the accuracy of my illustration which appears in the page Rois, in The Wijnbergen Roll:
"In the photo which I have of this page from the book, Armorial Wijinbergen, with the shield of the King of Iceland, the lion is holding a blue axe, and the axe is a "bearded axe" which was often used to pull the shield from its owner to get to him in fights. The lion is also longer and more straight. The blue axe is probably a symbol of the law and the lower part is the true symbol of iceland barry of twelve argent and azure. Gissur Þorvaldsson jarl, 1208-1268, probably got this shield from the king of Norway. Iceland was ruled by the king of Norway from 1262".
He included two images:
This is from an Icelandic site, which cites The Armorial Wijnbergen, Paul Adam & Léon Jéquier, Archives Héraldiques Suisses, 1954, itself the source of my own entry in European Rolls of Arms. The image at the beginning of this article is from a black and white illustration from Adam & Jéquier. I have added the tinctures according to their blazon.
This contradiction is an important aspect of the history of heraldry in general. The problem has always been that a source is copied and then lost, a process which may be continued over many stages. The topic on Martlets makes a brief reference to this idea.
I do not dispute the query. What I have done in the pages of the Wijnbergen Roll is to draw my own version of the arms from the French blazon. The original roll comprises more than 1200 painted shields, and as far as I am aware there has been no facsimile edition published.
There are other versions:
This is from the Russian Wikipedia: unfortunately, I cannot read Russian!
Here, the blade of the axe is shown sable.
An image from 1539 shows a stylised interpretation, along with the stokfisk, salted cod, which is an ancient emblem of Iceland.
As in other similar representations, the blade of the axe is curved to fit the line of the shield.
The Icelandic Commonwealth, Icelandic, Þjóðveldið, was the state existing in Iceland between the establishment of the Althing in 930 and the pledge of fealty to the Norwegian king in 1262. It was initially established by a public consisting largely of recent immigrants from Norway who had fled the unification of that country under King Harald Fairhair. Its arms were barry of twelve argent and azure:
The second of the
two images from Tómas Albertsson
The following arms are all to be found in the relevant pages of the section on European Rolls of Arms
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| Camden Roll, D14 | Wijnbergen Roll, WN1275 | Herald's Roll, HE20 | Lord Marshal's Roll, LM27 | Walford's Roll, C17 | Herald's Roll, HE21 |
| Le Rey de Norweye | le Roy de noruee | Le Roy de Norweye | Le Roy de Norovaige | Le Roy de Norwey | Le Roy de Norweye |
| Magnus IV | Erik II Magnusson | ||||
| de goules a un leun rampant de or od une hache d'argent | de gueules au lion d'or tenant une hache du même | de goules a un cheval d'or selle |
The arms from Walford's roll are probably either attributed to the King of Norway, or simply an error. The same arms with the horse argent appear in the Wijnbergen Roll, WN1296, where they are blazoned de gueules au cheval gai d'argent, and attributed to le Roy de pulenne, the King of Poland. Here, the arms are canting on the French poulain, foal.
The arms of Norway and the Commonwealth were then combined to form the basis of the arms of the King of Iceland.