Village of St Paul's Bay / San Pawl il-Baħar (Malta)

Last modified: 2006-03-18 by santiago dotor
Keywords: malta | san pawl il-baħar | st paul's bay | sword: pointing up | sword: snake entwisted | snake |
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3:5
N.B. the white and blue stripes should be wavy, not straight
image by Dirk Schönberger, exported to GIF by António Martins, 28 October 2002

• Description

See also:

• Subnational Flags (Malta)
• Clickable map of Malta Island
• Malta

Other sites:

• Coat-of-Arms of St Paul's Bay at the Local Council website

Description

The flag shows the sword which was used to decapitate St. Paul. I do not know the meaning of the snake.

Ivan Sache, 14 November 2002

Blazon: Barry [wavy] of six Argent and Azure overall a snake Vert [entwisting] a sword erect Argent hilted and pommed Or.

Željko Heimer, 14 November 2002

According to the Bible, St Paul was bit by a snake but unharmed. The scene is shown for instance on a 12th century fresco in Canterbury Cathedral. Source: Heiligen van alle tijden, Clemens Jöckle, 1995. (...) In Acts 28, 3-6, Paul is gathering wood, and a viper stuck to his arm, and he didn't notice it. Some people noticed it and said that he was a criminal, whom the Fates didn't want to die. Paul just shook his arm and the snake fell into the fire. As this happened in Malta it wouldn't surprise me if it was very near to St Paul's Bay.

Jarig Bakker, 15-16 November 2002