For our next stop as we follow my friend Katie on her river cruise in Europe, we come to the city of Mondsee, Austria, and it's somewhat unusual coat of arms.
Heraldry of the World, https://www.heraldry-wiki.com/wiki/Mondsee, gives us the blazon of these arms in German: Geteilt; oben in Blau ein goldener, sicheljOrmig gesichteter Vollmond; unten in Silber drei goldene, zwei zu eins gestellte Zillen mit schwarzen, schrägrechten Brandstreifen, linkshin gerodert von je einem rot gekleideten, stehenden Schiffmann mit schwarzem Filzhut.
A literal English translation of that blazon would be: Per fess: Azure a moon in her decriment* or; and Argent three golden boats, two to one, black diagonal fire stripes, each flanked to the left by a red-clad, standing boatman with a black felt hat.
A perhaps more accurate English blazon: Per fess: Azure a moon in her decriment or; and Argent three boats or each charged with three bendlets sable and rowed by a standing boatman proper habited gules hatted sable.
* “A face in profile [on the moon] may be depicted exterior to the concave edge. With the horns facing dexter she is (or should be) blazoned ‘[a moon] in her increment’, and with the horns to the sinister ‘[a moon] in decrement’; it must, however, be pointed out that on the numerous occasions of her being er[roneously] blazoned ‘[moon] increscent’ and ‘[moon] decrescent’ (and when ‘decriment’ is printed in place of ‘detriment’), no harm is done because the intention is quite clear.” (Franklyn and Tanner, An Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Heraldry, cf. “Moon”.
These arms are, in fact, canting; that is, they are a pun on the name. Mondsee = Moon sea.
* “A face in profile [on the moon] may be depicted exterior to the concave edge. With the horns facing dexter she is (or should be) blazoned ‘[a moon] in her increment’, and with the horns to the sinister ‘[a moon] in decrement’; it must, however, be pointed out that on the numerous occasions of her being er[roneously] blazoned ‘[moon] increscent’ and ‘[moon] decrescent’ (and when ‘decriment’ is printed in place of ‘detriment’), no harm is done because the intention is quite clear.” (Franklyn and Tanner, An Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Heraldry, cf. “Moon”.
I will note for my own part that not every heraldic author agrees with Franklyn and Tanner on the definitions of these terms.
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