As I have indicated in my last post the Paus family (gt Dickmann) has a family crest. This has been explained to us for the first time by my uncle I seem to recall. My father never mentioned it as much as I can remember. A crest is obviously something super cool, in particular when you are a little kid and I was always quite impressed with it. At the time I wondered, a crest is usually the sign of a noble family, but Paus certainly does not seem to be a noble family name and it is even not a very well known name in Germany. Searching Paus on the internet, the best you can come up with is that it means ‘Papst’ in dutch and there is a well known noble family in Norway called Paus. I do not know but I would assume they have nothing to do with us. Anyway, I am straying because I wanted to talk about my childhood recollections. When I asked my uncle, he never really explained much at a time, maybe he did not really know either but the picture that emerged from the little information is as follows.
The old peasant Paus was ordered by the local noble man to bring beer to the large feast in the castle. There have always been wolfs but with the cold winter and large snowfall they were more aggressive and straying through the region. There had been reports of a particular large lonely wolf. Peasant Paus had a large horse pulling his sled which he used to transport the beer in the bitter cold night, when a huge wolf appeared and started to leap at the horse. He got off the sled and fought the wolf with his bare hands and killed him, strangling the poor beast to death. The noble man was grateful for the delivery of the beverages and the killing of the big bad wolf. The crest was a sign of gratitude.
I cannot possibly believe that story but there must be something to it. Stay tuned, I will with time update the story with better researched facts.
