Angelo Sedacca

So You Want a Coat of Arms

The first thing you notice upon entering the College of Arms, in London, is a small and incongruously blue statue of a kiwi, clutching a gold axe in its right claw. Sorry, let me try that again: In the odd historic language of heraldry, this is “a kiwi Azure grasping in the dexter foot an ice axe bendwise Or. ”The bird belongs to the coat of arms of Sir Edmund Hillary, a New Zealander, who was part of the first team to conquer Mount Everest.