* * * * * GORDON, Duke of GORDON. The primitive Bearing of this Family was, "Azure, a Boar's Head couped, Or;" though at present it carries "Azure, _Three_ Boars Heads couped, Or." The first is the more honourable Charge, as the Unit is always accounted in Heraldry preferable to Numbers, not only on account of its simplicity[313], but in a religious sense (often couched in Armory), as it betokens God the Father, while the Charge of Three has the like reference to the Trinity. The traditional story, however, relating to the particular Coat Armour before us, is told by Douglas, in his Peerage of Scotland, to this effect; _viz._ that in the Reign of King Malcolm Canmore, in the eleventh century, a valiant Knight, of the name of _Gordon_, came into Scotland, but from whence is not said, and was kindly received by that Prince. The Knight, not long afterwards, killed a Wild _Boar_, which greatly infested the Borders[314], when Malcolm gave him a grant of lands in the Shire of Berwick. These lands, according to the custom of those times, the Knight called _Gordon_, after his own name, and settled upon them, taking a _Boar's_ Head for his Armorial Ensign, in memory of his having killed "that monstrous animal[315]." This may seem a trivial reason in itself, but we have another similar tradition in the Arms of Forbes[316]. [312] Nisbet's Heraldry, vol. I. p. 145. [313] Nisbet's Heraldry. [314] In rude times, such as those were of which we have been speaking, it was accounted an action of no small valour to kill so fierce an animal as a _Wild Boar_; being attended with considerable personal danger, for want of such weapons, offensive and defensive, as we have at present. On this account I may be excused bringing forward a parallel honour attending a circumstance of this sort, though I fetch it from the Hottentots, a people to whose very name we seem to have falsely annexed ideas, far from the truth, of every thing below the dignity of human nature, and placed them but one degree above the brute creation. On the contrary, they are represented by Kolben, who had opportunities of personal intercourse with them, and was well qualified to observe and reason upon what he saw, as a people much wronged by our unfavourable opinions of them. But to the point: their country appears to be, from its situation, exceedingly exposed to the incursions of the fiercest of beasts, lions and tigers; insomuch that a Hottentot who kills one of these animals with his own hand is _deified_, and his person held sacred ever after. [315] Douglas's Peerage, p. 295. [316] Nisbet's Heraldry, p. 327.