Most Glaswegians of a certain generation can rhyme off the short poem that relates to the city's coat of arms.
One that depicts our founder and patron saint, St Mungo, and the miracles he is believed to have performed during his lifetime.
"There’s the tree that never grew/ There’s the bird that never flew / There’s the fish that never swam / There’s the bell that never rang."
Interestingly, and perhaps surprisingly, while St Mungo (or Kentigern) lived between 518 AD and January of 614, the coat of arms itself did not materialise until the 19th century, when Lord Lyon granted the city its patent in 1866 to be specific.
With the heraldic visual design incorporating a number of symbols (associated with St Mungo) that had, prior to then, appeared on official seals above the words 'Let Glasgow Flourish' - words that St Mungo is said to have used during his sermons.
And yet there exists a theory - albeit a peculiar one - which suggests that the true origins of Glasgow's coat of arms has nothing to do with St Mungo, and relates instead to the story concerning the The Book of Genesis narrative about the flood and Noah's Ark.
The theory is contained within William George Black's journal 'The Derivation of the word "Glasgow", which was read to the Glasgow Archaeological Society at The University of Glasgow back in 1883.
In it, Black refers to a letter which appeared in a Glasgow newspaper some 50 years earlier, in March of 1833, detailing the theory with the following:
"The druids are said to have taken their religion from Noah, and the shield in the coat of arms represents pretty strikingly an incident in the Deluge.
The dove has just landed on the tree from which she plucked the olive leaf, Genesis viii.11, the water has abated, as may be seen from the fish in the water near the foot of the tree.
The bell, if in the original design, may have been intended to represent the call to worship. The other things in the coat of arms are modern."
The author of the theory then goes on to note how they believe the shield to be central to the name 'Glasgow' by claiming that the origins lie in the word 'deschu' (which they suggest corresponds to Glasgow). With the French 'Ville d'escu' translating as 'town of the shield'.
With the 'de' then becoming 'g', the town was written down on paper as 'Glescu', which over time ended up as 'Glasgow' according to the author of the coat of arms theory.
While Black regards the theory and subsequent idea that the word 'Glasgow' relates to a shield as being fanciful, at least it does make for some interesting reading.
