#canting arms

Munich has used the monk as either a canting element (Mönch in German) or a symbol of the local monastery - perhaps both - essentially continuously for several hundred years. The motif has transcended heraldry to be a popular local theme for postcards, beer mugs, figurines, and numerous other trinkets. The Münchner Kindl, as the figure has come to be known, also features in the city’s Oktoberfest parade and serves as a sort of municipal mascot.

These are canting arms; the town’s name comes from “Egge” (harrow). I think they tried to do something fancy to bars to represent that, but since they’re supposed to be harrow blades and they look like harrow blades, I just went with that. The colors are from the arms of the Dukes of Styria, and the two crowns represent St. Bartholomew and St. Florian. The former was the patron saint of the local church in the medieval era, and the latter is the current saint.

These are canting arms (albeit slightly removed), as the town’s name was derived from Erlibach, which was derived from Erlenbach, meaning alder-river.

The boar (Eber) does double duty here as both a canting element and a symbol of the town’s connection with Kremsmünster Abbey. The abbey was founded in 777 by Tassilo III, Duke of Bavaria, on the site where his son Gunther had been killed by a wild boar. (The last part is legend, but does help explain the abbey’s use of a boar as a heraldic symbol). Eberstalzell was one of a few towns the duke donated to the new abbey. The bridge doesn’t have quite the same long pedigree; it’s a representation of the local autobahn bridge, which is built of stone.

The chevron is evidently from the arms of the Ehingen family, who built a castle in the region in 1280 (and presumably owned the land - although the Zollerns may have disagreed with that). I assume the water is a canting element, referring to the Bad (“bath”) in the town’s name and also to its mineral springs, long believed to have healing properties.

Here we have some lovely canting arms with an aquatic theme - not surprising, as the town is located directly on the Edelsbach river between two tributaries. The fess wavy (explicitly referred to as a “river” in the original German blazon) refers to the double “bach,” or “stream” of the town’s name. The alder (“Edel”) branches are also canting. The bulrushes (“rohr”) refer to one of the town’s districts, Rohr an der Raab, which was incorporated into Edelsbach bei Feldbach in 1968.

These arms are something of a remix of those of the Counts of Eberstein. (argent a cinquefoil gules seeded azure). The larger shield uses the main tinctures of the family’s arms, and the boar (Eber) does double duty: it is both a canting element and an adaptation of a crest the Ebersteins started using in the early sixteenth century, probably in reference to their name. The mount is intended to be another canting element - a rock, or Stein.

From what I can find, the good people of Schwalldorf really wanted canting arms. However, this was slightly thwarted by the small issue of not knowing exactly what their town was named after, which is typically a prerequisite. Undaunted, they instead decided to represent as many theories as possible in their arms! The fess wavy, as it often does, stands for water - in this case, the mineral springs known as Schwalbrunnen. The swallow, or Schwalben, is another potentially canting element, and the snail shell, or Schnecke is a third (although the last represents the population center of Schneckenhof, and not necessarily the entire area).