Boars in heraldry

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The Royal insignia of the Vijayanagara kings spots 4 elements – Sun, Moon, Dragger and Boar.
On the Norwegian "Kongshornet" (The King's Horn) the coat of arms of the old Galte-clan can be seen before it became "Galtung" in the times of Danish superiority over Norway. The horn is currently in a Danish collection in Copenhagen, and they've refused Norway's request to return it.[1] The coat of arms would have been a golden or silver (in the sagas "radiant") boar symbolizing Ynglinga on a blue background, along a shell symbolizing the sea or Christian pilgrimage.[citation needed]
A Roman Antefix roof tile showing the boar badge and standard of the Twentieth Legion
Saubanner as depicted in the Berner Schilling
(1480s)
Coat of arms of Malacky in Slovakia.
Heraldic boars on the memorial to Alexander Nisbet in the Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh.

The wild boar and boar's head are common charges in heraldry.

Early history

The boar was used as an emblem in some instances during antiquity and the

legions are known to have had a boar as their emblems – Legio I Italica, Legio X Fretensis and Legio XX Valeria Victrix
. The Knocknagael Boar Stone is a well-known
Vendel periods and the Viking Age. This is reflected in the boar helmets worn in battle, attested in archeological records and both Old English and Old Norse written sources. The boar is closely associated with Freyr and has also been proposed to be a totemic animal to the Swedes, in particular the Yngling royal dynasty who ruled at a cultic centre for the god.[2]

The most familiar Ferguson Clan crest has the three boars on an Azure blue shield with a buckle in the center. Three royal Irish Ferguson brothers originally came to Scotland from Ireland and became the Kings of Dalriada – they battled and married into the Picts uniting Scotland and are considered to be the first kings of Scotland. The three brothers started separate Ferguson family clans in different areas of Scotland and have some difference in their crests but the most common is the three boars crest. This information and more can be found in the History of the Ferguson Clan. [citation needed]

Rous Roll showing King Richard III in the centre with his wife Anne Neville on the left and his son Edward, Prince of Wales
on the right. Showing his various heraldic crests (St Edward the Confessor, England, Wales, France, Ireland, etc.) and his white boar badge, with the Warwick bear of his wife.

With the development of

livery badges.[3]

In the 15th century, a coat of arms of "Tribalia", depicting a wild boar with an arrow pierced through the head (see Boars in heraldry), appeared in the supposed coat of arms of Emperor Stefan Dušan (r. 1331–1355). The motif had, in 1415, been used as the coat of arms of the Serbian Despotate and is recalled in one of Stefan Lazarević's personal Seals, according to the paper Сабор у Констанци. Pavao Ritter Vitezović also depicts "Triballia" with the same motif in 1701 and Hristofor Žefarović again in 1741. With the beginning of the First Serbian Uprising (1804–1813), the Parliament adopted the coat of arms of Serbia in 1805. Their official seal depicted the heraldic emblems of Serbia and Tribalia.

The

Zajíc
) combined with a hare.

Early modern and modern examples

In heraldry of the early modern period, use of a boar's head (rather than the entire animal) became a popular device. Siebmachers Wappenbuch (1605) shows a boar in the coat of arms of the Schweinichen noble family.

Boars, in whole or in part, feature frequently in British heraldry. While a distinction is sometimes made between the wild animal, termed the wild boar or sanglier, and the male of the

erased at the neck, while in the latter it is couped or erased close.[4]

Modern rulers who have used the boar's head as part of their coats of arms include Joseph Bonaparte and Joachim Murat.

Family coats of arms

In

O’Hanlon family coat of arms features a boar and was used as the Standard Bearer for Orior (present day Ulster). Some Irish Keating families have been granted arms containing a boar going through a holly bush to symbolize toughness and courage[citation needed
].

In Scotland, a boar's head is the crest of Clan Campbell and Clan Innes. It appears in both the coat of arms and crest of Clan Chisholm. Three boars' heads appear in the coats of arms of the related clans Swinton, Gordon, Nesbitt and Urquhart. Three boars' heads are also used by the unrelated Bannerman clan.

In

Guipuzcoa
.

Cities and Towns

Serbian Triballi boar on the Large coat of arms of Voždovac

Boar charges are also often used in

Ebersbach, Saxony use civic arms that demonstrates this. Each depicts a boar – Eber in German (and in two cases a wavy fess or bars meant to represent a brook
– Bach in German).

Albano Laziale in Italy is near the site where, according to legend, Aeneas's son Ascanius founded Alba Longa; the modern city's coat of arms today sports the white (Latin: Alba) boar dreamt by Ascanius before the founding of the city.[dubious – discuss] Malacky in Slovakia also has a coat of arms with a wild boar. The name of the city, which was first mentioned in writing in 1206, refers to the word "Malacka" which means "piglet" in the Hungarian (Magyar) language. In the East Flanders province of Belgium, the municipality of Everghem, literally "boar's estate" in Dutch, features a boar on a yellow field.

In Belgium, the Flemish the municipalities of Vorselaar in the Antwerp Province and Zaventem in the Flemish Brabant province prominently feature boars.

In Serbia, the municipalities and cities of Barajevo, Kragujevac, Lapovo, Lajkovac, Topola, Velika Plana, and Voždovac use the Triballian boar for their larger and/or smaller coat of arms, ether as part of the heraldic shield or as the Supporter animals on the larger coat of arms.

Military and paramilitary badges

A wild boar, as shown on the canting coat of arms of Eberbach, Germany (1976 design)

In various armorials, the Serbian coat of arms has featured the pierced head of a wild boar, also known as the

Serbian revolutionary forces during the First Serbian Uprising featured it together with the Serbian cross
.

The Lorne Scots
, a Canadian Army Infantry regiment use the Boar's Head as a symbol due to their affiliation with Clan Campbell.

In

Régiment de Chasseurs Ardennais, the soldiers of which wear a boar's head pin on their beret.[citation needed
]

See also

References

  1. ^ Braseth, Sofie (2018-01-30). "Vil ha norsk kulturskatt tilbake fra Danmark. Slik svarer danskene". dagbladet.no (in Norwegian). Retrieved 2022-02-05.
  2. S2CID 154250096
    .
  3. ^ "boar". concise.britannica.com. Archived from the original on 2007-10-14. Retrieved 2007-06-21. In Europe the boar is one of the four heraldic beasts of the chase and was the distinguishing mark of Richard III, king of England.
  4. Arthur Fox-Davies, A Complete Guide to Heraldry, T.C. and E.C. Jack, London, 1909, 199–200, https://archive.org/details/completeguidetoh00foxduoft
    .
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