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Giffers commune (Fribourg/Freiburg canton, Switzerland)

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Giffers

by Pascal Gross

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 thinks 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.

Zeljko Heimer, 14 December 2000