[Footnote 2: Do you remember that in the "Canterbury Tales" the knight tells the story of how, after the battle, "two young knights were found lying side by side, each clad in his own arms," and how neither of them, though "not fully dead," was alive enough to say his own name, but by their _coote-armure_ and by their _gere_ the _heraudes_ knew them well?] Probably because this last duty was preceded by a flourish or blast of trumpets, people learnt to associate the idea of blazoning with the proclamation of armorial bearings, and thus the term crept into heraldic language and signified the describing or depicting of all that belonged to a coat of arms. The few and comparatively simple rules with regard to blazoning armorial bearings must be rigidly observed. They are the following: 1. In depicting a coat of arms we must always begin with the field. 2. Its tincture must be stated first, whether of metal or colour. This is such an invariable rule that the first word in the description of arms is _always_ the tincture, the word "field" being so well understood that it is never mentioned. Thus, when the field of a shield is azure, the blazon begins "Az.," the charges being mentioned next, each one of these being named before its colour. Thus, we should blazon Fig. 44 "Or, raven proper." When the field is semé with small charges such as fleur-de-lys, it must be blazoned accordingly "semé of fleur-de-lys," in the case of cross-crosslets, the term "crusily" is used. 3. The ordinaries must be mentioned next, being blazoned before their colour. Thus, if a field is divided say, by bendlets (Fig. 30), the diminution of bend, it is blazoned "per bendlets," if by a pale (Fig. 18), "per pale," or "per pallets," if the diminutive occurs, as in Fig. 31, whilst the division in Fig. 32 should be blazoned "pale per fesse." The field of Fig. 17 is blazoned "arg., two bars gu." All the ordinaries and subordinaries are blazoned in this way _except_ the chief, (Fig. 15), the quarter (blazoned "per cross or quarterly") the canton, the flanch, and the bordure. These, being considered less important than the other divisions, are never mentioned until all the rest of the shield has been described. Consequently, we should blazon Fig. 48 thus, "Arg., chevron gu., three soles hauriant--drinking, proper, with a bordure invected sa." [Illustration: FIG. 30.] [Illustration: FIG. 31.] [Illustration: FIG. 32.]