January 10 2000

When I created the Arthurian Legend, I wanted to create a shield to put in the front page of the new section. I came up the idea of shield with a red eagle symbol in the centre.

Actually, the shield came in 2 different colours: blue and grey. There were two shades for each colour – one dark shade, and the other lighter.

I had also shrunken these shields, to be use for my buttons that I sure you have noticed, in the menu pages of Arthurian Legends, Camelot and Age of Chivalry.

The main reason why I created these shields in the first place was to create all those buttons for the Arthurian Legends.

Later, I had included the shield in front of crossed two swords (one red pommel and one green pommel).

For some background, I have put a red sun behind the shield, like the one displayed at the home page of Arthurian Legends.

November 24 2004

I included further additional shields on November 24 2004.

Here, modification to the shield was superficial, just in a different colour – black.

Oh, the hawk is in the colour gold, instead of the usual red hawk.

This was made specifically for the Sir Gawain page, with this black shield, but with a red sun in the background.

Sir Gawain was the nephew of King Arthur. Gawain's original name in the Welsh works was Gwalchmai or Gwalchmei, which means the "Hawk of May". Gwalchmai was frequently referred to as Gwalchmai fab Gwyar, and he first appeared in Culhwch and Olwen (c. 1100), one of the eleven Welsh stories in the Mabinogion. The month of May was traditionally the start of summer in the Celtic calendar.

If you are wondering if this is the type of design of Gawain's shield, then I would answer you with a "no". I designed the shield in this way because of his original Welsh name, not because he carrying a black shield with a hawk device. According to the tale, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the device on the hero's shield was an occult symbol – the pentagram.