Translation & interpretation requested, please.

[Mowsehowse]

I found the following extract in "The Genealogical and Family History of the STATE OF MAINE, vol lll"
For the name PULSEVER/PULSIFER.....

The coat-of-arms  is given in Rietstap: De gu, a'une aigle de profil d'or le vol leve perchee sur un serpent de sin, ondoant en forme de S pose en bends la tete en haut. Crest: Un lion ramp patti d'or et de gu tenant de ses pattes un demi-vol de gu.

Recalling rusty school-girl French I have made a stab at translating it, and I have also trawled the web for symbolic meaning, but is there a heraldry expert willing to give me an educated overview please??   

[The Mc]

Tried it in Google Translate from French to English and it came out like this......

Gu, a'une golden eagle profile theft leve perched on a snake of sin, Ondo S-shaped bends his head raises up. Crest: A lion ramp patti Gold-gu taking his legs half a flight gu.


You need a proper translator!

[Mowsehowse]

I tried that myself, and came to the same conclusion, but many thanks for having a go.   

[Little Nell]

This is not all in 'proper' French.  The language of heraldry is largely French in terms of the descriptive terms used for colours etc and this seems to be mixed, but in its abbreviated heraldic form, with true French.

The background of the shield would be red (gu = gules = red); on it is a gold (or) eagle in profile taking flight (perched) on a snake (de sin ? no idea, looks like sin, but this is odd.  Could be a play on words since 'sin' in French is 'péché' ) undulating (does the word read 'ondoyant'?) in an s form, the head uppermost.  'en bends' sounds like heraldry speak meaning on the diagonal from top left of the shield to bottom right,

Crest: a lion rampant (like the lion of Scotland), patti (?no idea - patty is usually used to describe crosses   unless it means the paws) - the colours are gold (or) and red (gules), holding in its paws a red half 'vol' ( a vol is usually an eagle's wings with the tips pointing upwards, but it would be the upper half of this).

Rietstap was a Dutch expert on heraldry.  What page is this description on in the volume you give?

Nell

[Mowsehowse]

Thank you for that Nell,
 the extract was cut & paste off the internet.
 Definitely old, and not very pure French.
 Here is the link:   http://dunhamwilcox.net/me/me_bio_pulsifer.htm 
 Will be glad to know if you have any more thoughts,  I have been wrestling for a few days.
 

[davidbappleton]

The coat-of-arms  is given in Rietstap: De gu, a'une aigle de profil d'or le vol leve perchee sur un serpent de sin, ondoant en forme de S pose en bends la tete en haut. Crest: Un lion ramp patti d'or et de gu tenant de ses pattes un demi-vol de gu.

It can be tricky to parse a French blazon, since the words don't necessarily mean the same thing as in everyday French (e.g., "meuble" in blazon is a "charge", whereas the everyday meaning is "table").  It's complicated here by the use of abbreviations (e.g., "sin" is an abbreviation of "sinople" which in English blazon is "vert" and whose everyday meaning is "green"), in addition to mistakes in the transcription from Rietstap (e.g., "patti" instead of "parti").  However, this is what I get out of it:

De gules, a une aigle de profil d’or le vol leve perchee sur un serpent de sinople, ondoant en forme de S pose en bends la tete en haut.  Crest: un lion rampant patti [I suspect that this word should be “parti”] d’or et de gules tenant de ses pattes un demi-vol de gules.

An English blazon would be:  Gules, an eagle rising wings elevated or perched atop a snake undy in bend head to chief vert.  Crest: A lion rampant per pale or and gules holding in its paws a demi-vol gules.

On a red shield, a gold/yellow eagle seen from the side with its wings upward perched  on a green snake whose body is wavy back and forth and whose orientation is head to the left and up and tail down and to the right.  The crest is a lion rampant (rearing) divided vertically, gold/yellow to the left and red to the right as you are looking at it, holding in its paws a red wing.

I hope that this information is helpful to you.

David

[Mowsehowse]

Thank you so much David, that is a really helpful and comprehensive reply.
 

[davidbappleton]

I found myself intrigued a bit by this whole thing, so when I got home last night I went and checked Rolland and Rolland's illustrations to Rietstap's Armorial Général.  And while I learned that I had translated the blazon of the arms reasonably well (the snake is more "embowed-counter-embowed" than it is "wavy"), I also learned that those arms do not belong to "Pulsever/Pulsifer" (in these or any other reasonable spelling variant beginning with Puls...).  The entry in Rietstap is for Pulosevits (from Serbia) (see the attached .jpg from Rolland and Rolland).  Whoever gave the information on that coat of arms in The Genealogical and Family History of the State of Maine was flat-out incorrect.

I should be shocked, but this sort of thing happens, and has happened, for a very long time.  Even in colonial Boston you find the arms of a family (in one specific instance that I recall, the arms of Scholar) being pawned off as the arms of another family whose name sounded similar (in that example, Scolly).  It appears that something similar occurred here.  As William Berry, in his An Introduction to Heraldry (1810), noted: "every coach, house, and sign painter pretends to a knowledge of the science of heraldry, rather than lose the job when offered."

I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news about this particular coat of arms, but I thought you should know.

David

[Mowsehowse]

Hello David.
Again, thank you. Your translation was a masterpiece as the illustration shows.

In fairness I should post the excerpt as found: “This surname is of French origin and the progenitor was of French Huguenot stock. The name is spelled Pulsever, Pulcifer, and in various other ways, in the early records. The name is not recognized by the authorities as an English surname, though the first settler may have been from Guernsey, or elsewhere on or near the English Channel, where many French Protestants took refuge. The nearest French resemblance to the name is Pulosevits, the pronunciation of which might give rise to the spellings in vogue during the life of the pioneer. “

It is true that I can imagine the name Pulosevits being written as postulated by the English, when spoken by the French, however, my history is not good enough to work out how it got from Serbia to France, though there has always been huge traffic of all religions being persecuted and fleeing to relative peace for a few generations . (I am sure I also read about a connection to Italy somewhere, but I can’t find it now.)

I absolutely agree that there are numbers of people willing to buy or sell anything that might pass for a genuine connection to a genuine coat of arms, and it being illegal to assume someone’s arms without permission, (and payment,) I wasn’t thinking of doing so, particularly at a distance of 250 years, however, I was very intrigued to find out more about it.   

So I shall hope that this isn’t the end of the puzzle. And someone may yet come up with more.  Thanks again for your time and interest, best wishes.