About Martlets

On to what you really wanted to know.

Represented with feathers where there should be feet and so unable to land, the martlet is a mythical bird representing ceaseless pursuit for learning. Some think the idea for a legless bird came from medieval observations of swallows, a small bird with legs so tiny that they appear not to be there at all.

The symbolism of the bird meant that it was incorporated into the coat of arms of several schools, including University College Oxford (“Univ” for short, founded in 1249) where I studied. The birds also have a connection closer to home, with three of them gracing the coat of arms of the University of Victoria on Vancouver Island.

There is a bit of a debate as to whether the Univ arms originally featured four or five martlets. Paying homage to that debate, there is a single martlet installed under a window overlooking a garden at the  college, as though escaping out of it.

The fifth martlet, the martlet on the move.