We’re back to visual punning (‘canting’) with the Fraser crest. ‘Fraise’ in French means strawberry, so this one is quite on the nose in terms of symbolism - a strawberry plant. 


The crest was devised by the Lords Fraser sometime in the seventeenth century, possibly when they were elevated to the peerage. The title Lord Fraser had been created by Charles I in 1633 and was extinguished in 1720. Nisbet’s System of Heraldry of 1722 records Andrew Fraser, Lord Fraser of Muchill having the crest ‘a mount full of strawberries, with the motto ‘All my hope is in God’’. However, the use of Strawberry symbolism by the Frasers goes a long way back into history. As early as 1276 Sir Richard Fraser was using a heraldic motif later referred to as ‘cinquefoils’ or ‘fraises’, representing Strawberry flowers. 


The crest seems to have been adopted by the chiefly Saltoun line of Frasers hence being used today, although this adoption seems to have happened sometime in the twentieth century. The chiefly arms combine this and the crest of the Lords Saltoun, an ostrich holding a horseshoe and motto ‘In God is All’. 


The motto, ‘All my hope is in God’ is appropriately godly for the family’s identity in the seventeenth century in the north east. It was also used by the Udny kindred.