Flag of Siurskeyti
The flag of Siurskeyti, often known by its familiar kenning Heiðursekra or “Field of Honour”, is a horizontally-partitioned flag, with three broad stripes of blue, black and blue being separated by thinner white edging stripes. Charged overall on the flag is a representation in white of the Lífstré or “Tree of Life”, a pre-Siur symbol which has been extant in western Messenia for almost 2,500 years.
Origins
While the idea of a flag or banner as representative of a state or similar entity came to the Siur fairly early in their existence as a distinct people, it would be wrong to see the design of the Heiðursekra as a development from heraldic principles, as is generally the case elsewhere in Messenia but seen as a foreign adaptation in the Siur lands. Siur familial identifiers usually take the form of tattoos or other markings, collectively known as égnifar, and the earliest flags to be used in the Siur country merely used these symbols on banners of whatever colour lay most conveniently to hand. However, the use of égnifar was a factor behind the choice of the Lífstré on the flag of the unified Siurskeyti when it came into being in 1623; Sterkur Fálk, the thein of Vonskil and the driving force behind the unification, sensibly considered that it would be inappropriate and almost certainly divisive to use a symbol derived from any existing égnifur, and thus suggesting the dominance of one group. The choice of the Lífstré, widely known and of unimpeachable antiquity without being tied to a particular community or commonhold, followed very quickly thereafter.
The use of blue and black as the flag’s principal colours was somewhat less logical; however, most of the member commonholds used more brightly coloured flags – as is understandable when one considers the important use of the flag as a clearly-visible rallying point on a battlefield – and the necessity of not duplicating an existing colour combination limited the available choice. It is noteworthy in this context that Siurskeyti’s army and navy flags retain the Lífstré as a charge, but in black on a white background, with the blue-black colours of the civil flag relegated to a stripe in the hoist of the battle flag.
Flag etiquette
Siurskeyti practices surrounding the Heiðursekra are unusual in that the country’s law actually accords legal personality to the flag; although corporate law recognises this to some extent for limited companies, as is generally the case in Messenian countries, the Heiðursekra is the only inanimate object to be so honoured. As a result, many of the concepts which surround injuries to the person have analogues in the treatment accorded to the flag; for example, desecration of the flag is regarded as equivalent to malicious wounding, and carries the same sentence. Likewise, a flag which is severely worn and unfit for further use is ceremonially burned, as an analogous process to the customary Siur practice of cremation of a dead body. This is taken even to the point that every flag manufactured in Siurskeyti has a registration number or “birth certificate”, usually sewn into the fabric in the lower hoist (the Hártal word fæðingarvottorð is used for both terms) and the decommissioning of a flag is noted in the central register maintained in Ostari, similarly to a death certificate.