Bragesjö coat of arms
Introduction
My coat of arms was designed in 2004 by Ronny Andersen, who is the Royal Danish courts armspainter, and Jesper Wasling from Svenska Heraldiska Föreningen. My shields motive is based on my family name. Bragesjö translated into English would be Bragi-lake, or as one say in English - the lake of Bragi, a God in Norse mythology. The coat of arms symbolizes the transition from my grandfathers old family name Johansson.
The chalices was selected to represent Bragarfull (Bragi cup’s) or "Bragebägare" in Swedish. Bragarfull are named after the skaldic God of poetry Bragi (Brage in Swedish) and are present in many Viking tales about Kings.
Blazon of my coat of arms
Swedish blazon
Sköld: Medelst en vågskura delat i rött, vari två kalkar av guld, och guld, vari en röd (öppen) krona.
Hjälmtäcke: Rött fodrat med guld.
Hjälmprydnad: En kärve av guld stående på en kälke av silver.
English blazon
Shield: Per fess wavy gules two cups or, and or a open crown gules.
Mantling: Gules, doubled or.
Crest: On a sleigh argent, a garb or.
German blazon according to https://heraldik-wiki.de
I have no idea about German heraldry terms or how to translate or if it is correct.
Blason: Geteilt von Rot, darin zwei goldene Pokale und Gold, darin eine rote Krone. Auf rot-goldenem Wulst ein silberner Schlitten, darauf eine goldene Korngarbe. Helmdecken rot-golde.
Oldest version of my coat of arms. Drawing by Ronny Andersen
Inspiration from other coat of arms
My crest is inspired by the main theme of a shield of a coat of arms at my mothers side. I had previous bought a brooch and later got this plate of Ryssnäs-släktens (The Ryssnäs family) coat of arms as a present from my aunt.
Almost all existing coat of arms are inspired by elements used in other coat of arms. I was also inspired by lots of other coat of arms with several elements like crowns and wavys. I was also inspired by other shields that used the same tincture combination but completly different shield items. My motto "Nothing is impossible" is inspired by the Swedish ski legend Gunde Svan. I know that my coat of arms has inspired other coat of arms, including both shield items and my crest.
My shield is mostly inspired by Trollencronas coat of arms, that I think is a very cool coat of arms, but there are many differences so my shield is unique. To be unique there most be at least two differences appart from tinctures.
- First there is two Bragarfull instead of one Troll.
- Then there is the wavy.
- And at last a different type of crown. Where Trollencrona use a kind of Saxon crown (krona med tre spetsar) I use a kind of basic open crown (öppen krona).
- My shield has also other tinctures.
Original drawing by Ronny Andersen
Publishing
Original publishing in the magazine Vapenbilden 60
Svenskt Vapenregister
My coat of arms has been published both in Vapenbilden and in Svenska Heraldiska Föreningens Matrikel. Several years after that in became on of the first registered coat of arms in Svenskt Vapenregister as SV 11.
Simplified drawing by Magnus Bäckmark for Svenskt Vapenregister
Skandinavisk Vapenrulla
Some year later my coat of arms became registered in Skandinavisk Vapenrulla as SVR 709/2011.
Reinterpretation by Ronny Andersen for use in Skandinavisk Vapenrulla
Additional interpretations
Here is a list of drawings apart from my family tree and my ex-libris
Reinterpretation by Thomas Falk in return for sponsering charity
Reinterpretation by Davor Zovko
Reinterpretation by Björn Fridén
Reinterpretation first draft by Fredrik Falkenback, I intended to pay for it but got i for free
Special reinterpretation version by Jochen Wilke
Jochen Wilke made a special extravagant experimantling version inspired by my coat of arms in return for sponsering charity. However that image is copyrighted so do not download it even thought I can use it since I ordered the original, a realy big file, and it is a image of my coat of arms that I payed for. Wilkes version somehow ended up at German Wikipedia but I am not shure who put it there, I belive that Wilke uploaded it there since he has permissions to spread it.
The image was created on my initiative since I contacted him and asked him to draw it when he showed experimatling samples at a Swedish forum. However I did not specify exactly how it would look like, I gave him complete freedom, I only told him that I wanted a coat of arms drawing in experimantling style and an extremly extravagant style at the rest of the coat of arms. I specifically said that the more extravagant you draw the coat of arms, the better it is.
Jochen did not want money for himself to draw the coat of arms. As payment I followed hes recommendation so I sponsored both the Swedish section of Red Cross and the Swedish section of Amnesty International with the same sum as a typical Swedish artist would have cost back then to make a reinterpretation of an existing coat of arms in digital form. Red Cross wrote a thank you letter but Amnesty International did not write anything similar.
The drawing it self are avalible in many versions at https://heraldik-wiki.de/wiki. At the site they have both smaller and larger versions of the image with extremly high resulations like the very big original file that I have on a USB memory stick that I printed out.
Simplified special version by Eduardo Pazikas
In 2018 Eduardo Pazikas and I worked together for an article in Svenska Heraldiska Föreningens magazine Vapenbilden about inspiration from other coat of arms he made an simplified interpretation of my coat of arms for use in that article.