^{This page is part of © FOTW Flags Of The World website}

Flags in books

J.R.R. Tolkien "Lord of Rings"
Robert A. Heinlein "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress"
Jan Morris "Last Letters from Hav"
James White "Federation World"
Other Flags from Novels
Vexil Excelsior, the flag novell

See also:

J.R.R. Tolkien "Lord of Rings"

Those flags from J.R.R.Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" that I can write out from my head are:

Mordor - red eye on sable,
Haradrim - red snake on sable,
Rohirrim - white horse on green field,
Dol Amroth - white swan on blue,
Reunited Kingdom - on black white tree, seven white stars above

As much as I can remember the Stewards of Minas Tirith do not use any device, but the pure white flag.

zeljko heimer 15-NOV-1995

Robert A. Heinlein "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress"

by roy stilling

In the 1966 science fiction novel the moon has been settled as a penal colony, but by the 2070s most settlers are free yet they are still ruled by a tyrannical Lunar Authority which they overthrow, declaring independence as the 'Luna Free State'. The LFS flag is described as (NEL paperback edition, p287):

"black field speckled with stars, bar sinister in blood [red], a proud and jaunty brass cannon over all, and below it our motto: TANSTAAFL!"

The meaning of the black field and stars are obvious, the bar sinister represrents the colonists 'ignoble' convict heritage and the blood red the 'martyrs' of the revolution. The other symbols are more tied up with the libertarian ideology of the novel - the brass cannon comes from a joke one character tells of a cleaner whose job it was to polish a brass cannon outside a courthouse, until eventually he saves enough money to by his own brass cannon and go into business for himself... TANSTAAFL! stands for "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch", a maxim frequently used in the book.

I attach my attempt to draw this flag (please excuse the poor representation of the cannon). I have always taken the "speckled with stars" to mean a random speckling of dots to represent the night sky, rather then the traditional five-pointed stars usually encountered in vexillogy.

roy stilling 16-NOV-1995

Jan Morris "Last Letters from Hav"

The flag of "Hav", the Danzig-like international city in Jan Morris's novel "Last Letters from Hav". It was given a black-and-white checkered flag precisely because such a flag would not duplicate the colors of any other country, and thus would not imply that Hav was allied with or controlled by any other country.
bruce tindall 12-OCT-1995

James White "Federation World"

Another example from SF is from James White's _Federation World_, in which the hero for ceremonial reasons has to come up with a flag for the Galactic Federation, which he represents. IIRC the Federation did not have a flag, it being an alien concept, but the hero, a human from Earth and therefore familair with the idea, devised a flag of a black field (for space) bearing a white diamond - which represented the Federation World itself - a vast diamond-shaped artifical habitat, big enough to contain an entire solar system inside it.

Which leads me to wonder that since most Air Force ensigns have a sky-blue field, if in the enxt century Space Navies become established, will their ensigns tend to have black fields?

roy stilling 10-FEB-1996

Other Flags from Novels

Gordon R. Dickson - Argent, a cross sable, for the Friendlies.

H.G. Wells, The Holy Terror - The flag adopted by the "World Directorate" is coincidentally that of Scotland - and the dictator imposes the addition of the saltire on all national flags to "cross them out".

Taylor Caldwell, The Devil's Advocate - Gules, a mullet argent is "the debased red rag of the Democracy of America". She also describes the flag of the dissident Minute Men.

alexander justice 14-NOV-1995

C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia gives the Narnian flag as a red lion on a green field (an illustration shows the lion springing).

nathan augustine 15-NOV-1995

Jack Williamson, Seetee Shock, has "Green stars... patterned to make a larger star on a field of black" for the asteroid rebels of the Free Space Republic. No flag mentioned for the High Space Mandate they are rebelling against, or the High Space Union of an earlier revolt.

will linden 19-NOV-1995

Vexil Excelsior, the flag novel

I spotted the below in rec.heraldry - it sound a little strange, but ought to be of interest to our list...

On Fri, 09 Feb 1996 23:46:18 +0800, in rec.heraldry, Paul Wilson & David King wrote:

My novel,Vexil Excelsior, the world's first flags novel, has just been published! Soon to be reviewed in Crux Australis, the journal of the Australian flag society, the novel has already attracted favourable comment in the Australian literary magazine Blast.

The blurb reads as follows:

Does flag reflect country or does country reflect flag? To A, B, and C, travellers from the infinite River and seekers of the country of the Ideal Flag, the question is irrelevant, for both are the same. Life can certainly be trying when signs do not just denote the world but are the world; and Vexil Excelsior, based on 'Flags', published in the collection Urban Fantasies, chronicles those trials unflaggingly, right up to the moment when colour itself threatens to spill out of the flag universe into our own.

Vexil Excelsior can be purchased by sending $22 Australian (or equivalent foreign currency) to: 26 McKay Street, South Bentley, Western Australia 6102.

Email queries: ventnor@psinet.net.au

roy stilling 12-FEB-1996

There is a home page connected to the book on http://www.psinet.net.au/~ventnor.