The Golden Pike, Heidelberg

So, continuing our wandering about the Altstadt, the Old City of Heidelberg, we ran across a hotel near the Old Bridge with a coat of arms and by the name Goldener Hecht.

It's a beautifully done carving, and the painting is also very well done.

Still, I thought, what does this have to do with a "golden pike," the translation of the name?  The arms, Gules three escutcheons Or, just didn't seem to match the name, so it's certainly not canting arms!  (For any non-heralds who may be reading this, in heraldry a "pike" generally refers to the fish and not to the polearm.  But as you can easily see, there are neither fish nor polearms on the arms.)

Well, just around the corner we found this.

It's not golden by any stretch of the imagination, and the paint here is much more weathered than the arms over the front door, but it helps to explain the name.

What a beautiful display of heraldry, even if it did confuse me a little at first.