Furs

In Heraldry; furs, such as ermine, vair, and their variants, are regular patterns that represent actual fur. Any charge may be of a fur. (In German heraldry, "fur proper" is sometimes used, but this is rare in the extreme.)

(Although the name "sable" comes from a kind of fur, the colour sable is usually not considered a heraldic fur.)

Ermine represents the winter coat of the stoat, white with a black tail; many skins would be sewn together to make a luxurious garment, producing a pattern of small black objects on a white ground. The conventional representation of the tails (usually called ermine spots) is part of the tincture itself, rather than a pattern of charges, though the ermine spot is occasionally used as a single charge (often as a difference mark). The ermine spot has had a wide variety of shapes over the centuries; its most usual representation has three tufts at the end, converges to a point at the root (top), and is attached by three studs.

Vair is thought to originate from the fur of a species of squirrel with blue-grey back and white belly, sewn together alternately. The term "vair" may have originally been cognate with “varied”, and was certainly used to describe horses of a mottled or spotted pattern. Basic vair consists of rows of small bell-like shapes of alternating blue and white, nowadays usually drawn with straight edges. The bells on the next row down are placed with their bottoms facing the bottoms of the bells on the row above, and so forth down. The old depictions of vair are similar in appearance to bars of azure and argent divided by alternating straight and wavy lines. (An excellent example is the lining of the cloak of Geoffrey Plantagenet as represented on his tomb.) In the past this would simply be blazoned "vair", but nowadays this is usually (though not always) blazoned vair ancient.

Listing of Furs

• Vair
• Counter-vair
• Vair in pale
• Gros-vair
• Vair en pointe
• Ermine
• Ermines (counter-ermine)
• Erminois
• Pean
• Potent
• Kursch
• Plumeté