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Thory Vedardottir

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Þórý at Pennsic 44
Information
Resides: Barony of Carolingia
Status: Active
Awards:
This individual may not have an entry in the Order of Precedence, or may not have added their OPID yet. Volunteer editors may add it in the future.
Heraldry
ThoryRedrawn.jpg
Azure, a winged ounce rampant within an orle argent.

ThoryBadge.jpg
Badge: Fieldless, on a Thor's hammer sable, in fess the runes Thorn, Othila, Raido, Eoh argent.
Award & Office Badges
Award of Arms
Herald

Introduction

My name is Þórý Veðardóttir (THOR-ray VED-ar-daw-ter). I joined the Society in anno societatis 47, and became a Herald at Pennsic 42. I'm a Viking Shield Maiden, and I've just Authorized in Heavy List. I look forward to fighting in the Novice Tourney at Pennsic 46.

I am the Golden Gryphon (Pursuivant Herald) of the Barony of Carolingia.

Currently I am working on the Work-in-Progress Traceable Art 4.0 to replace the current version: Pennsic Traceable Art Project 3.0 If you would like to lend a hand, please contact me via social media at the bottom of this page.

Persona

I'm a Viking Shield Maiden and sailor from the village of Tønsberg in the Northlands. According to the Christian method of counting years, it's 994 A.D. Like many other sailors, I follow Thor. I usually bring my Runestones to gatherings and enjoy giving readings.

I am part of Camp Crooked Cat at Pennsic.

Heraldry

I am the Project Lead for the Heraldic Traceable Art 4.0, which will hopefully replace the Traceable Art 3.0 by Pennsic 46 in 2017. I'm primarily an art Herald, and am part of the Blue Tyger's staff.

I registered my name and device within a few months of joining the Society, which is quite unusual. Many people take years to decide on a time period, persona, and name. A friend convinced me to join the Society because he saw the Old Norse dictionary on my desk -I was researching the Vikings for my alternate history novel.

I was fortunate that an amazing website is dedicated to Viking personas, clothing, customs and names: The Viking Answer Lady Webpage! My friend suggested that I should start from the back of the alphabet when choosing a name. (I have since met more people with "A" names than I can shake a stick at!) So I looked at the end of the Women's Names Section where the "Þ" names started, and found "Þórey" which indicated a devotee of Thor with unusual luck. Since my luck is odd, both extremely good and extremely bad, I decided this was a good omen and chose it. The spelling was changed to "Þórý" by the Heralds to better fit historical accuracy. It is pronounced THOR-ray.

For a last name, I looked no farther than "Stormsdotter" the handle I'd used for over a decade. The "-er" ending is incorrect for Scandinavia, and was a hat-tip to Elizabeth Moon's Paksenarrion books. I looked up some Old Norse words for "Storm". Since "Veðar" is a pun on my legal name, so I went with it. I ended the name with the standard female name suffix, "-dotter".

The designs of my arms and badge are just as personal as my name. My device is 'Azure, a winged ounce rampant within an orle argent.' This means it has a blue background, with a silver winged cat in the default posture, rampant. The orle is the extra silver border. The design comes from a combination of heraldry of my favorite author's two lady knights. Tamora Pierce's first lady knight, Alanna the Lioness, has a shield of red with a gold lioness rampant. Her second lady knight, Kel the Protector of the Small, has a blue shield with a silver owl and a silver orle, a detail which distinguishes a lady knight in her books.

As a Herald, I consider myself an honorary member of House Ravenclaw, and my favorite colors are blue and silver. I don't like owls, and the Mountain Lion is one of my totem animals, so I wanted a silver lioness rampant on a blue field with the extra silver border. Due to the sheer enormity of registered devices in the Society with cats, the device I designed conflicted with another lady's. My consulting herald suggested putting wings on the cat, which I later learned was a very common solution for clearing conflicts. Since I was going for a combination of cat and owl, I was quite pleased with this alteration. My only regret is that my device is registered as an 'ounce' rather than a 'lioness.'

My other registered device is my Badge. Badges are lesser forms of Heraldry, usually simple designs that are easy to drawn, paint, or embroidered onto items. Since I've been putting Thor's hammers on a number of my things that Muggles see, the Mjollner shape was a clear choice for a base. To further distinguish this black Thor's hammer as my own, I wrote my name across it in silver Elder Futhark Runes: Thorn, Othila, Raido, Eoh. Since the Elder Futhark doesn't map perfectly to English, my name ends up being spelled TH-O-R-EI.

Activity and Information