Pálffy ab Erdöd

Members of the family held significant positions in the Habsburg monarchy.

The Hungarian name Pálffy derives from the Latin term Pauli filius (son of Paul), after the first known ancestor of the family.

The family crest is of a deer above a wooden wheel which was created supposedly after an incident in the forest.

The legend says that members of the Pálffy family were travelling in a horse-drawn carriage in the forest at night and in the mist when a deer shot out from the forest and hit the side of the carriage, breaking a wheel and killing the deer.

When morning arrived and the mist had cleared, they had stopped just before a cliff edge so the family realised that deer had saved their lives.