Barr Sinister
Bastard of the Bar
When you find you’re missing Sessions —
That’s how low the bar can go —
Then you want to up your belly
To the bar just down the road.
For of all the shoals and sandbars
Which could ground our ship of state,
What could be, bar none, more tragic
Than an A.G. who’s not straight,
But a barrister who’s crooked,
Bending law to bar the door
To inquisitors who’d question
Just what all the smoke is for?
For the house is truly burning.
It’s the attic that’s on fire.
Arsonists should be behind bars,
As our laws clearly require.
Sir Walter Scott is credited with inventing the phrase bar sinister, which has become a metonymic term for bastardy. Heraldry scholar Arthur Charles Fox-Davies and others state that the phrase derives from a misspelling of barre, the French term for bend. — Thank you, Wikipedia
A bend sinister is a diagonal bar running from the shield bearer’s upper left to their lower right, which has been used as a heraldic signifier of bastardy.
