POTENT, and its less common variant COUNTER POTENT, are usually ranked in British heraldic works as separate furs. This has arisen from the writers being ignorant that in early times _Vair_ was frequently depicted in the form now known as _Potent_ (see Fig. 39, _q_). (By many heraldic writers the ordinary _Potent_ is styled _Potent-counter-potent_. When drawn in the ordinary way, _Potent_ alone suffices.) An example of _Vair_ in the form now known as Potent is afforded by the seal of JEANNE DE FLANDRE, wife of ENGUERRAND IV. (De Courcy); here the well-known arms of COURCY, _Barry of six vair and gules_, are depicted as if the bars of vair were composed of bars of _potent_ (VRÉE, _Généalogie des Comtes de Flandre_). In a _Roll of Arms of the time of Edward I._ the _Vair_ resembles _Potent_ (-counter-potent), which DR. PERCEVAL erroneously terms an "invention of later date." The name and the differentiation may be, but not the fact. In the First Nobility Roll of the year 1297, the arms of No. 8, ROBERT DE BRUIS, Baron of Brecknock, are: Barry of six, Vaire ermine and gules, and azure. Here the vair is potent; so is it also in No. 19, where the coat of INGELRAM DE GHISNES, or GYNES, is: Gules, a chief vair. The same coat is thus drawn in the Second Nobility Roll, 1299, No. 57. POTENT, like its original _Vair_, is always of _argent_ and _azure_, unless other tinctures are specified in the blazon. The name _Potent_ is the old English word for a crutch or walking-staff. Chaucer, in his description of "Elde" (_i.e._ old age) writes: "So olde she was, that she ne went A fote, but it were by potent." {85} And though a potent is a heraldic charge, and a cross potent a well-known variety of that ordinary, "potent" is usually intended to indicate the fur of blue and white as in Fig. 39, _q_. It is not of frequent usage, but it undoubtedly has an accepted place in British armory, as also has "counter-potent," which, following the same rules as counter-vair, results in a field as Fig. 39, _r_. The German terms for Potent and counter-potent are respectively _Sturzkrückenfeh_ and _gegensturzkrückenfeh_ German heraldry has evolved yet another variant of Potent, viz. _Verschobenes Gegensturzkrückenfeh_ (_i.e._ displaced potent-counter-potent), as in Fig. 39, _s_. There is still yet another German heraldic fur which is quite unknown in British armory. This is called _Kursch_, otherwise "Vair bellies," and is usually shown to be hairy and represented brown. Possibly this is the same as the _Plumeté_ to which Mr. Woodward refers.