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City coats of arms began to take shape at the same time as the law of cities in the second half of the 13th century. These images were placed on city seals, originally without a heraldic shield, and gradually some of them later became true, fully fledged coats of arms.
The Polish word for a coat of arms or heraldic device, herb, was adopted from Czech, where the original form erb had a double meaning of "heritage" and "armor." The Czechs borrowed the word from the German language, where the original form Erbe means "heritage." The etymology for coats of arms in the western European languages is somewhat different. There the identification function and genesis of heraldry are revealed by names related to armor, for example arma, arms (or coat of arms), armoires, or Wappen (which used to have the same meaning in German as Waffen).
The origin of the coat of arms of Warsaw, like the beginnings of the city and its name, has long been a subject of hypotheses and legends. Until the latter part of the 17th century the arms were presented in a figure combining human features with those of a fanciful bird-fish-dragon creature. In the second half of the 17th century, and especially in the 18th century, the figure lost some of the more fanciful features and approached the image of the contemporary siren or mermaid, a woman with a fish's tail and fin.
The oldest existing armed seal of Warsaw is from the year 1390. It is a round seal bordered with the Latin inscription Sigilium Civitatis Varsoviensis. In the middle, against a background of vegetal ornamentation, there is a cartouche showing a figure with a human head wearing a helmet, human arms attached to the torso of a bird, a lion's tail and the hooves of a bull. In its arms it holds a round shield and a sword.
During the 16th century, the male torso on the Warsaw arms was replaced with a female torso, the helmeted head disappeared, and there appeared dragon wings at the hips and a lizard tail.
The first mermaid (fish-woman) with a sword and shield appeared in 1622, but it is not known exactly how the transformation from half-man/half-bird to the present arms took place.
Until 1791, up to the administrative consolidation of Warsaw, the mermaid was the emblem only of Old Warsaw and two districts under its jurisdiction, Solec and Mariensztat (from 1781). The City of New Warsaw and remaining districts had separate arms, for example the arms of New Warsaw were a maiden with a unicorn.
The first regulations concerning the appearance of the arms of Warsaw come from 1798, during the Prussian occupation. The arms presented half naked people with maces, holding a heraldic shield with a mermaid, with a Prussian eagle on the mermaid's shield.
In 1811, during the period of the Duchy of Warsaw, the seals of the city adopted the official emblem of the Duchy, the Saxon-Polish Arms. Later, when the Russian partition included Warsaw, the city was deprived of the right to use historical arms, and the state seal was used.
In August 1915, after the Russian authorities fled Warsaw, Polish local authorities returned the mermaid to the city seals. After Poland regained independence in 1918, the mermaid became the permanent official emblem of Warsaw.
In 1938 a new pattern for the arms was introduced, designed by Szczęsny Kwarta, which was changed in 1967 and then restored by resolution of the City Council of Warsaw on 15 August 1990. The arms present, in the field of a red shield, the figure of a woman with a fish's tail turned to the right, lifting a sword in her right hand and a round shield in her left hand. The body and tail are a natural color, and the hair, sword and shield are gold. Above the coat of arms is a royal crown.
In comparing the chronological images of the mermaid, we may observe how the emblem evolved over the centuries from a half-monstrous figure, variously identified, to a beautiful woman with a fish's tail. Despite the changing image of the mermaid herself, two accompanying attributes are unchanging, the sword and the shield, emphasizing the defensive character of the city. Presenting half of the figure as a fish symbolized the city's location on the river, flowing to the sea and connecting the city to the wider world.
The mermaid was also used as a symbol of city ownership as well as a popular Warsaw motif. The origin of the legendary figure is not fully known. Tellers of many stories and legends have tried to explain where she came from.
The best-known legend, by Artur Oppman, is that Warsaw fishermen caught a mermaid, who sang beautifully, in their net . At the foot of today's Old Town, she left the water to rest on the sandy shore, and she liked the place so much that she decided to stay. The fishermen soon noticed that during their fishing someone was churning the waves of the Vistula, tangling the nets and releasing the fish. But the mermaid enchanted them with her beautiful singing, and they did not harm her. One day a wealthy merchant saw the mermaid and her lovely song. He quickly calculated how much money he could make if he captured the mermaid and displayed her at market fairs. He tricked the mermaid, seized her and imprisoned her in a wooden shed without any water. A young farmhand heard the mermaid's cries, and with the help of friends he freed her at night. Grateful that the townspeople had defended her, the mermaid promised that she would help them in time of need. This is why the Warsaw Mermaid is armed: She bears a sword and a shield to defend the city.
Among the lesser-known legends is the one written by Maria Krüger entitled "The Noble Griffin and the Beautiful Mermaid." According to the legend, the security of the medieval city of Warsaw was guarded by a manly and noble Griffin. When he once took a journey with the river boatmen to the Baltic, he met a beautiful Mermaid. They fell deeply in love and the Mermaid swam with them back to Warsaw. From then on, they both watched over the townspeople. When the Swedes attacked Warsaw, the valiant Griffin was treacherously wounded by the enemy and shortly died, and his companion, the brave Mermaid, seized sword and shield and courageously fought in defense of the city. Grateful residents of the city on the Vistula were smitten with her and placed her image on the arms of their city.
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| 17 April 1589, A fragment of a vignette with the arms of Old Warsaw on a document of the Polish king Zygmunt III, restating the privileges granted to the City of Old Warsaw of revenue from inland and riparian customs duties on goods transported through the city. |
1652, Coat of arms of Old Warsaw on the cover of an accounting book of the city. |
15 February 1599, Imprint of the seal of the City of Old Warsaw with the city's coat of arms on a document in which the mayor and council of the city sponsor the Holy Trinity altar in the Collegiate Church of St. John. |
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| 1602, Fragment of the title page of an accounting book of Old Warsaw with the image of the city's coat of arms. |
27 III 1648, Imprint of seal with the coat of arms of the city on a document for sale of a garden in New Warsaw, on Zakroczymska Street. |
1665-1660, Ex libris with figure of the coat of arms of Old Warsaw on the cover of an accounting book of the city. |
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| 21 August 1750, Fragment of initial with arms of Old Warsaw on a document of the Polish king August III confirming the city's rights and privileges. |
21 August 1750, Fragment of a document of the Polish king August III, confirming the privileges of Old Warsaw, with an image of the emblem of the city, a mermaid holding a shield with the arms of the Polish-Lithuanian Republic. |
4 October 1806, Imprint of seal with arms of Warsaw on a document conferring civil rights on Jan Rogalski. |
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| 4 October 1806, Vignette presenting the Prussian eagle holding in its beak a medallion with a mermaid, from a document conferring civil rights on Jan Rogalski. |
2 May 1817, Vignette with the emblem of the Kingdom of Poland (Russian two-headed eagle with a shield on its breast with the crowned Polish eagle) and the mermaid, from a document conferring civil rights on Teodor Blume. |
31 January 1938, Official pattern of the coat of arms as designed by Szczęsny Kwarta. |
References:
1. Encyklopedia Warszawy [Encyclopedia of Warsaw], Warsaw 1994.
2. Gumowski M., Herby miast polskich [Arms of Polish Cities], Warsaw 1960.
3. Kuczyński S. K., Herb Warszawy [Arms of Warsaw], Warsaw 1977.
4. Kuczyński S. K., Syrena warszawska [The Warsaw Mermaid], Warsaw 1991.
5. Grochowska M., Syrenka - odwieczny symbol Warszawy [Mermaid, Eternal Symbol of Warsaw], Warsaw 1999.
6. Plewko A., Wanag J., Herbarz miast polskich [Arms of Polish Cities], Warsaw 1994.
7. Przywileje królewskie miasta stołecznego Starej Warszawy 1376-1772 [Royal Privileges of Old Warsaw], ed. T. Wierzbowski, Warsaw 1913.
8. Wejnert A., Starożytno¶ci warszawskie [Warsaw Antiquities], Warsaw 1847, vol. 1 pp. 5-31.
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