Last modified: 2000-01-07 by phil nelson
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Those flags from J.R.R.Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" that I can write out from my head are:
For all Fans of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy and related
works, I have just launched a "Flags of Middle Earth" page! It consists of sketches I made in 1978, which I scanned and colorized. More information on these sketches appears on the page. I haven't sent them to FOTW because they are not in FOTW standard image format. For example, they all have poles and finials.
David Martucci
![[TANSTAAFL flag]](../images/lunafs.gif)
by Roy Stilling
In the 1966 science fiction novel the moon has been settled as a penal colony, but by the 2070s most settlers are free yet they are still ruled by a tyrannical Lunar Authority which they overthrow, declaring independence as the 'Luna Free State'. The LFS flag is described as (NEL paperback edition, p287):
"black field speckled with stars, bar sinister in blood [red], a proud and jaunty brass cannon over all, and below it our motto: TANSTAAFL!"The meaning of the black field and stars are obvious, the bar sinister represrents the colonists 'ignoble' convict heritage and the blood red the 'martyrs' of the revolution. The other symbols are more tied up with the libertarian ideology of the novel - the brass cannon comes from a joke one character tells of a cleaner whose job it was to polish a brass cannon outside a courthouse, until eventually he saves enough money to by his own brass cannon and go into business for himself... TANSTAAFL! stands for "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch", a maxim frequently used in the book.
From Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein:
John S. Ayer and Herman De Wael, January 1999Harshaw drew a rectangle, sketched in it the traditional human symbol for Mars, a circle with an arrow leading out from it to the upper right. 'Make the field in white and the sigil of Mars in red--should be sewed in bunting (iso silk) of course, but with a clean sheet and a bucket of (iso some) paint any Boy Scout could improvise one in ten minutes.
The flag of "Hav", the Danzig-like international city in Jan Morris's novel "Last Letters from Hav". It was given a black-and-white checkered flag precisely because such a flag would not duplicate the colors of any other country, and thus would not imply that Hav was allied with or controlled by any other country.
Bruce Tindall, 12 October 1995
Another example from SF is from James White's Federation World, in which the hero for ceremonial reasons has to come up with a flag for the Galactic Federation, which he represents. IIRC the Federation did not have a flag, it being an alien concept, but the hero, a human from Earth and therefore familair with the idea, devised a flag of a black field (for space) bearing a white diamond - which represented the Federation World itself - a vast diamond-shaped artifical habitat, big enough to contain an entire solar system inside it.
Which leads me to wonder that since most Air Force ensigns have a sky-blue field, if in the enxt century Space Navies become established, will their ensigns tend to have black fields?
Roy Stilling, 10 February 1996
![[Flag from the book Animal Farm]](../images/animfarm.gif)
by Ole Andersen
Animal Farm, 1945"Snowball (one of the porcine leaders of the revolution - SAN) had found in the harness-room an old green tablecloth of Mrs Jones's and had painted on it a hoof and a horn in white. This was run up the flagstaff in the farmhouse garden every Sunday morning. The flag was green, Snowball explained, to represent the green fields of England, while the horn and the hoof signified the future Republic of the Animals which would arise when the human race had finally been overthrown."
The hoof and horn eventually disappeared from
the flag, as did much of the ceremonial surrounding its use.
Stuart A. Notholt, 23 December 1998
Vexil Excelsior, the flag novel
I spotted the below in rec.heraldry - it sound a little strange, but ought to be of interest to our list...
On Fri, 09 Feb 1996 23:46:18 +0800, in rec.heraldry, Paul Wilson & David King (ventnor1@iinet.net.au)
wrote:
My novel,Vexil Excelsior, the world's first flags novel, has just been published! Soon to be reviewed in Crux Australis, the journal of the Australian flag society, the novel has already attracted favourable comment in the Australian literary magazine Blast.
The blurb reads as follows:
Does flag reflect country or does country reflect flag? To A, B, and C, travellers from the infinite River and seekers of the country of the Ideal Flag, the question is irrelevant, for both are the same. Life can certainly be trying when signs do not just denote the world but are the world; and Vexil Excelsior, based on 'Flags', published in the collection Urban Fantasies, chronicles those trials unflaggingly, right up to the moment when colour itself threatens to spill out of the flag universe into our own.
Vexil Excelsior can be purchased by sending $22 Australian (or equivalent foreign currency) to: 26 McKay Street, South Bentley, Western Australia 6102.
Email queries: ventnor1@iinet.net.au
There is a home page connected to the book on http://www.psinet.net.au/~ventnor.
![[Flag of Spirou]](../images/spirou-k.gif)
by Pascal Vagnat
I don't remember the name of this imaginary country (from the books of Spirou), which has a border with Burma. Nevertheless the name of the dictator is Kodo, the Marshall Kodo found in "Kodo le tyran" and "Des haricots partout". The flag of this country is red with a white disc but with a black square "C" in the middle with a vertical bar at the bottom of the "C".
Pascal Vagnat, 14 December 1998
We often discuss imaginary flags in science-fiction books, erroneous flags in history books etc... but much more rarely correct and significant descriptions of real flags in books.
I found a good example in the novel "Der Stechlin" by Theodor Fontane (1819-1898). The book describes the last years of the count Dubslav von Stechlin, who lives in the castle of Stechlin, in the village of Stechlin, near the lake of Stechlin, in the county of Ruppin, Brandenburg and therefore in the historical heart of Prussia. The action takes place after the retirement of Bismarck (1890) and of course the German unification (1870-71).
The book is heavy and a bit tedious to read because a deep knowledge of German/Prussian historical reference would have been needed. There is a general opposition between the ancient, rural kingdom of Prussia and the recent, industrial German Empire, but the details are much more subtle. The Count himself is much more progressive than could be expected from his origin, and looks with humour at the dusk of aristocracy. In the beginning of the book (so if you want to read the flag-related part, you just need to proceed to page 15 out of 419 :-) is the description of the castle of Stechlin and its garden. (If you prefer the original version to my translation from the French translation, the book was published by Carl Hanser Verlag, Muenchen, in 1980.)
"On the top of the [artificial] hill, [stood] a platform with a pole, to which was hoisted the Prussian black and white flag, the whole being in a rather bad condition..Recently, Engelke [the old servant of the house] had wanted to add to this flag a red stripe, but his proposal had been rejected. "Don't do that. I do not agree. The old black and white [flag] is still standing by chance; but if you add red to it , it will surely tear"
Ivan Sache, 21 May 1999
![[flag from The Devil's Advocate]](../images/us-doafl.gif)
by Tom Gregg
Many, many years ago I had the misfortune to read a novel titled *The Devil's Advocate* by Taylor Caldwell, a truly dreadful American writer. In it, the US is in the grip of a collectivist dictatorship and the country's name has been changed to "The Democracy of America." Caldwell provides a description of The Democracy's flag: "bloody of background and bearing a single bloated white star." There is, of course, an underground freedom-fighting organization called the Minute Men--what else? Their flag is also described by the author: it bears crossed rifles in dark blue on a white field. I can't recommend the book, but I thought the flags were worth a mention.
Tom Gregg, 03 June 1999
Is that star 'bloated'?
I thought of the 'rounded' star of USSR. The 'rounded' star has its inner diameter equal to half the outer diameter.
Rosignoli writes (in World Army Badges and Insignia Since 1939):
"The red star with hammer and sickle was introduced in 1922 and two types of it were initially made for the Red Army. The 'rounded' star which is still in use nowadays [1972/4] was adopted on 3 April, 1922, but another pattern with straight points ('sharp') was also adopted on 11 July of the same year. The latter star slowly went into disuse."
I thought of that but decided that such a star would look too Soviet Russian. In Caldwell's book, The Democracy of America is a home-grown totalitarian regime. In fact, the author tells us that The Democracy fought and won a war with the USSR some years before the time at which the novel's action begins. Thus an "American" type of star seemed more appropriate. I took "bloated" to mean simply "large."
Tom Gregg, 12 June, 1999
After being spooked by it's size for many years, I finally got the courage to pick Herman Melville's book "Moby Dick" and read it through. Let me say that my purely subjective appreciation is that the book isn't worth it's fame. It has, however, some qualities, being one of them some vex remarks. It practically ends with a mention to Ahab's ensign (Ahab is the (mad) captain of the ship, the Pequod), whatever that may be, and in page 235 (of 656) in my portuguese edition it reads (my backtranslation - it would perhaps be nice if someone posted the original words):
It is generally admitted that the white, by it's purity, enhances the beauty of many natural things, as marble, lacquer and pearls; it is know that several nations gave this colour a certain royal prominence over the other colours; the old and powerful kings of Pegu attributed to their title of "Lords of the White Elephants" precedence over the rest, and in the banner of the modern kings of Sion that quadruped appears represented in a snowy white. The flag of Hannover also presents the image of a white horse.
And he goes on talking about the virtues of white, including some racist
remarks, but without further vex references. Possibly there would have
been, if only he knew that a spermwhale appears prominently represented in
the municipal flag of São Roque do Pico, Azores, Portugal. A black
spermwhale, though...
Jorge Candeias, 08 June 1999
Jorge Candeias has asked for this original text from Moby Dick, Chapter 42: The Whiteness of the Whale.
Though in many natural objects, whiteness refiningly enhances beauty, as if imparting some special virtue of its own, as in marbles, japonicas, and pearls; and though various nations have in some way recognized a certain royal pre-eminence in this hue; even the barbaric, grand old kings of Pegu placing the title "Lord of the White Elephants" above all their other magniloquent ascriptions of dominion; and the modern kings of Siam unfurling the same snow-white quadruped in the royal standard; and the Hanoverian flag bearing the one figure of a snow-white charger; and the great Austrian Empire, Caesarian heir to overlording Rome, having for the imperial colour the same imperial hue;
and then follows the remaining three-fourths, or more, of that sentence. Pegu was a kingdom in what is now Myanmar. It was conquered by the kings of what is now Thailand, though known to Herman Melville, the author of Moby Dick, as Siam.
John Ayer, 08 June 1999
Gordon R. Dickson - Argent, a cross sable, for the Friendlies.
H.G. Wells, The Holy Terror - The flag adopted by the "World Directorate" is coincidentally that of Scotland - and the dictator imposes the addition of the saltire on all national flags to "cross them out".
Taylor Caldwell, The Devil's Advocate - Gules, a mullet argent is "the debased red rag of the Democracy of America". She also describes the flag of the dissident Minute Men.
Alexander Justice, 14 November 1995
C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia gives the Narnian flag as a red lion on a green field (an illustration shows the lion springing).
Nathan Augustine, 15 November 1995
Jack Williamson, Seetee Shock, has "Green stars... patterned to make a larger star on a field of black" for the asteroid rebels of the Free Space Republic. No flag mentioned for the High Space Mandate they are rebelling against, or the High Space Union of an earlier revolt.
Will Linden, 19 November 1995