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The
Oettle family of
Baden-Württemberg has
for centuries borne
the same coat of arms
as the Oettel family
of Franconia: Chapé
ployé azure and
gules, 1 & 2:
three mullets of six
points or, 3: a
unicorn argent.
Crest: A
demi-unicorn issuant
argent. Torse: Or,
azure, argent and
gules. Mantling:
dexter or and azure,
sinister argent and
gules. Oettles
from various parts of
Württemberg display
these arms, in places
as far apart as
Stuttgart and
Tübingen.
The
arms are also borne by
the Oettle family in
South Africa,
descended from the
brothers Georg Johann
and Christian
Frederich Oettle,
immigrants from the
small town of Urbach,
east of Stuttgart,
where their father
owned the local
Schloss Urbach, which
he had purchased,
lying between the
villages of Oberurbach
and Unterurbach.
As
a small boy, the
armiger was fascinated
by a wooden carving of
the shield which hung
in the family home and
had been made, years
earlier, by his
grandfather Emil
Frederich (Erich)
Oettle when he himself
was schoolboy in Port
Elizabeth; this
fascination was to
lead to a lifelong
interest in heraldry.
In
Urbach there is a
second Oettle family
that bears arms that
are also chapé ployé
with the upper
segments blue and
charged with three
gold stars on each
side, but the lower
segment is silver and
charged with mining
tools in black. In
German, the mullets
are blazoned as Sternen,
but when the armiger
first encountered a
blazon for the arms,
it was quoted in
French from Rietstap,
who called the stars étoiles.
In his ignorance he
assumed that this was
equivalent to the
British charge called
an estoile,
which is a star with
wavy arms.
When
the armiger inquired
about registering the
arms with the Bureau
of Heraldry in
Pretoria, he was told
that since the arms
belonged to a family
in a different region
of Germany, it could
not register them
without some mark of
difference. He then
decided to enlarge the
unicorn and place it
across the entire
shield, not just the
red portion, and to
reduce the number of
stars to three,
placing them in the
three corners. Having
become attached to the
estoile, he chose to
use it instead of the
straight-armed mullet.
A
typical German method
of differencing is to
change the crest, so
he decided to dispense
with the demi-unicorn
and replace it with a
South African animal.
Initially, he favoured
the kudu (Tragelaphus
strepsiceros),
but it is a popular
charge, appearing in
various coats of arms
and military badges,
so he chose to alter
its colour to blue.
The
torse and mantling are
distinctly in German
style; in Britain only
three colours would
normally be allowed,
and the mantling would
be uniform but he
chose to retain the
German style.
The
motto was chosen
because the armiger’s
Swiss
great-grandmother
Marie Oettle, wife of
Georg Johann, made a
number of wooden
shields in poker
writing, bearing the
legend “The fear of
the Lord is a fountain
of life,” a quotation
from Proverbs 14:27.
This happens to be the
third reference in
Proverbs to the fear
of the Lord, the third
to a fountain of life,
and the first
combining the two. The
armiger had toyed with
the idea of using the
motto in German,
considering the origin
of the family, but
since Marie was
French-speaking and
chose to do her poker
work in English (since
she lived in the
colonial English town
of Port Elizabeth) he
decided to stick to
English.
The
official blazon as
registered with the
Bureau of Heraldry
in 2012 is:
Gules
chapé ployé Azure,
overall a unicorn
clymant Argent,
armed, crined and
unguled Or,
langued Gules,
between three
estoiles Or.
Torse: Or, Azure,
Argent and Gules.
Mantling: Dexter
Or and Azure,
sinister Argent
and Gules. Crest:
A demi-kudu
issuant Azure,
attired and
unguled Or,
langued Gules,
striped Argent.
The
decision to use the
verb clymant
signifies two things:
firstly, the unicorn
is supposedly
derived from the goat,
and clymant is used in
Scottish heraldry to
indicate a goat in a
rampant pose. Since
the armiger’s ancestry
is also partly
Scottish (through my
mother’s maternal
grandfather) the
usage is also a nod to
his Scottish
connection.
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