In addition to prayer and thank-you gifts made of wood, silver and iron, as well as painted votive tablets, there were wax votive offerings that believers bought from a wax maker after recovering from an illness or accident and placed in a pilgrimage church. The votive offerings shown here come from the wax maker and gingerbread shop of the Murnau Forster family. The custom of wax votives, which is particularly widespread in southern Germany, seems strangely foreign to us today. However, it is assumed that wax votive offerings already existed in ancient times. They have been documented in sources since the 10th century. The advancing Middle Ages already produced numerous pictorial representations depicting wax votives. The votives were cast in so-called wooden molds. While body parts such as hands, ears, eyes and tongues stood for the suffering that had been overcome, farm animals (like the rooster in this case) and houses symbolized the worries and hardships of everyday rural life that had been overcome. The negative heart mold was used by the Forster waxworks, which was also a gingerbread factory, to make gingerbread.