The Knights of St. Hagan

I absolutely love obscure, niche props.  Dale Bigford returns to our pages with one inspired by Mike Mignola's "Hellboy" universe- the sigil of the Knights of St. Hagan.

A sigil cut from an ashlar block of a medieval chapel in Tavira, Portugal before its demolition.

Mike Mignola created this order of knights because in his own words "Everybody uses the Templars for this sort of thing but I like to make up my own guys so no one can tell me I got my facts wrong."

Featured in "The Chapel of Moloch" (where the sigil is first displayed) and "The Bride of Hell" The order formed at the Siege of Acre of 1291, Crusader Hagan Douglas, who was greatly regarded by the city's defenders, was captured and tortured by the Mamalukes before being beheaded and sent back to Acre to inflict a morale blow to the Crusaders.

At the last battle for the city, Hagan's headless body was resurrected and fought alongside his men. Although the Christians lost the city along with Hagan's body, the forty-seven knights that witnessed Hagan's resurrection survived and escaped. Inspired by the miracle, the knights founded the Order of the Knights of Saint Hagan in honor of the Crusader's namesake and patrolling the Holy Land in hunting the servants of "the evil one".