Evening star., 1898-10-05
THE TRISkELION.
Something Interesting About the
Arms OF the Isle of Man.
Writ he

Something Interesting About the
Arms OF the Isle of Man.
Written for The Evening Star.
The presence in Washington last week
| of the Manx author, Hall Caine, in connecz
ton with the dramatiza ton of his great
novel, The Christian calls attention to
everything Manx. The three-legged escut-
| oheon of the Isle Of Man has been mention
ed, and l have thought it possibly of sufti-
cient interest to justify short resume of
! its history.
The armorial emblem of the Isle of Man
consists of three human legs in armor con-
joined at the thighs at equal angles, sharp
ly fieXed, with the feet and toes turned out
ward, and occupies the entire field of the
escutcheon. Three legs form the triskelion
and four the tetraskeion. The triskehon
Is very ancient symbol 1t is found on
Greek vase on which is represented
Achilles and Hector (Waring: Ceramic Art
in Remote Ages, pl. ~, fig. 20 1t appear
ed at an early date on the coins of Lycia
1t was the first armoriai emblem of Sicily,
and is represented SiCilan coins in the
reign of Agathocles, b. c. 317-31O. 1t was
at one time considered a symbol OF the sun
representing, respectively, morning, mid
day and evening but this was demonstrated
TO be purely theoretical. Pliny denies il
and eXplodeS the theory. He attributes the
triskelion of Sicily and the adoption as its
emblem to the triangular form of the ISL
and, ancient Trinicria, with its three large
equidistant capes, named Pelorus, Pachy-
nus and Lilybaeum.
The migration of the triskelon from Sicily
to the Isle of Man and subsequent adop-
ton as its armorial emblem is traced by
Mr. John Newton in The Athenaeum, Sep
tember 10, 1872, page 3o3.
Prior to the thirteenth century the Isle
of Man was under dominion of the Morse
Vikings, and its armOrial emblems were
Enthusiastically a ship under full sail Two
fha Ter f,f n X ino of y J.p.n
in the Cotton MSS.), bear seals with this
device. Twenty years later, after the con-
quest of the island by and its cession to
Alexander Ill of Scotland, A d. l266 the
Morse emblems disappear entirely and are
replaced by the symbol of the three legs
1T appears, then,' says Newton. almost
certain, though we possess no literary doc
ument recording the fact, that to Alexander
Ill of Scotland is due the Introduction of
the Tire Cassyn as the distinguishing arms
of the Isle of Man" He then explains how
this probably came about.
Frederick III CA D. 119I-125W the Nor
man king of Sicily. married Isabella the
daughter of Henry Ill of England. quar-
rel between the King of Sicily and the pope
led the latter to offer the crown to Henry
III OF England, who accepted it for his son,
Edmund (the hunchback), who thereupon
took the title of King of Sicily and quarter
ed the Sicilian arms with the royal arms of
England. The negotiations between Henry
and the pope progressed for several wears
G253-l2o9), when Henry, finding that he
could no longer make it an excuse for rails
ing money, allowed it to pass into the lin
bo of forgotten objects.
Alexander III of Scotland had married
Margaret, the youngest daughter of Henry
III, and thus was brother -in-law to Ed
mund well as to Frederick. In 1856 and
while these negotiations between Henry and
the pope concerning Sicily We're in progress
Alexander visited at London his royal faith
er-in-law the King of England. and his
royal brother-in-iaw, the King of Sicily.
and was received with great honors. About
that time Haco, the Morse king of the Isle
of Man, was defeated by Alexander III of
Q266) the Isle of Man was ceded to the lat
ter. The Morse coat-of-arms disappeared
from the escutcheon of the Isle of Man
and, being replaced byT the three legs of
Sicily. Mr.. Newton inquiries:
What more likely than that the king
alexander lid. when he struck the Nor
wegian flag, should replace it by one bear
Sicily, island having so many points OF
resemblance with that of Man and over
which his sister ruled as queen and her
brother had been appointed as king?"
However little We may know concerning
the method of transfer of the coat-of-arms
from Sicily to the Isle of Man. we are not
left al -all in doubt to the fact of its ac-
complishment and the triskelion of Sicily
became then and has been ever since and
Man.
The Duke of Athol, the last proprietary
of the Isle of Man, and who in 1765 sold
his rights to the crown of England still
bears the arms of Man the fifth QUAR-
tering. THOMAS WILSON
United States National Museum, septem-
ber 80, 1898.