Some time in the early 1970s, I had some time and the opportunity, so I visited the West Covina (CA) public library, and made a (very!) modest attempt to find out a little more about the Wolfskill family.
I made some notes during this venture, and one of the notes is ascribed to p. 1113 of a book called Armorial General, vol. II (1965). It appears to be a description (in abbreviated French) of a coat-of-arms assigned to one Wolfskehl from Heilbronn, in Baden-Wurtemberg. Note that I have absolutely no reason other than some similarity in the name to believe that it has anything whatsoever to do with anyone in the Wolfskill family. Nevertheless, I will try to reproduce it:
Wolfskehl - Heilbronn. Parti darg. et de gu.; à un crampon darg., posé en barre, br. sur le parti, et un loup courant au nat., br. sur le tout, le ventre dégouttant de sang, soutenu dun terte de sin. C.: un loup iss. au nat., entre deux prob. coupées alt. darg. et de gu. L.: darg. et de gu. C. = Cimier L. = Lambrequins
Note that Wolfksehl is a German compound noun of fairly ordinary construction: Wolfs Kehl:
Now, back to the description of the coat-of-arms. As noted, it's in French. Further, heraldic technical terms are generally abbreviated. As a first step toward understanding it, then, I'll show my best guess as to expanding the abbreviations:
Wolfskehl - Heilbronn. Parti dargent et de gules; à un crampon dargent, posé en barre, brochant sur le parti, et un loup courant au naturel, brochant sur le tout, le ventre dégouttant de sang, soutenu dun terte de sin. Cimier: un loup issuant au naturel, entre deux prob. coupées alt. dargent et de gules Lambrequins: dargent et de gules
Here's a Babelfish translation of the above expansion:
Wolfskehl - Heilbronn. Party d.argent and of gules; **time-out** with a cramp d.argent, pose in bar, stitch on the party, and a wolf current with natural, stitch on the all, the belly drip of blood, constant d.un terte of sin. Cimier: a wolf issuant with the naturalness, between two prob. crossed alt. d.argent and of gules Lambrequins: d.argent and of gules
Finally, here's what I think I can make out of it:
Wolfskehl - Heilbronn. The coat-of-arms is divided vertically; one side is white and the other is red. A pole is fastened to the white side; the pole impales the stomach of a naked running wolf, which is dripping blood over everything. Crest of helmet: a naked wolf comes up from two upright sections, one white; the other red. Valances: white and red.
Comments? Please send them to David Wolfskill. Thanks!
$Id: coat-of-arms.html,v 1.3 2003/09/01 02:57:44 david Exp $