Comb (Period)

Wool-comb (Period); currycomb (Period)

A comb is a thin implement with teeth, used to arrange or clean hair.  The default heraldic comb is a square with teeth cut into opposite sides; combs of this form have been used as heraldic charges since c.1295, in the arms of Tunstall [ANA2 301].  A comb is a standard accoutrement of mermaids.

Other types of comb are distinguished in blazon by a qualifier.  We see the “wool-comb” or “flax-comb”, a rake-like implement for aligning the wool fibers in preparation for spinning, found in the arms of Bromle or Bromley, c.1520 [DBA3 77]; the example is taken from Boccaccio’s Livre des femmes nobles et renommées, 15^th C.  There’s also the “currycomb”, used for grooming horses, found in the arms of Marstaller, c.1600 [BSB Cod.Icon 307:532].  Both of these types of comb are palewise by default, their handles to base.

Hair comb (Accepted)

Of combs unique to Society armory, there is the “hair comb”, inserted in milady’s hairdo to hold its arrangement; its teeth are to base by Society default.

Matilda Hanscombe bears:  Vert, a hand argent sustaining to chief a comb Or.

Solveig Tryggvadottir bears as a badge:  A single-sided comb fesswise Or.

Kolfinna Jódisardóttir bears:  Vert, a wool-comb Or.

Morgana of the Crystal Wells bears:  Per pale azure and argent, a hair comb counterchanged.