Bärn

„The bear has long served as symbol of Bern. Legend has it that, in 1191, Duke Berthold V of Zähringen vowed to choose as namesake the first animal his hunt met in the wood that was to be chopped down for his new city. As Konrad Justingers chronicle puts it:

„Then they caught a bear first, which is why the city was called Bern; and so the citizens had their coat and shield, which was a black bear in a white shield, going upright.“

The first records of bears being kept in the city come from 1513, when the chronicler Valerius Anshelm described how the Bernese returned home victorious from the Battle of Novara, carrying both the captured standards and a living bear as spoils of war.“

... shortly afterwards I started a pike block of that very provenience. And now I finished twelve Halberdiers.

The figures are Perry miniatures, "Famous Seamus", my 12 year old lurcher agreed to help out posing as the bear.