Fylfot

However – at least in modern heraldry texts, such as Friar and Woodcock & Robinson (see § Bibliography) – the fylfot differs somewhat from the archetypal form of the swastika: always upright and typically with truncated limbs, as shown in the figure at right.

[7] They were certainly substantially in evidence during the Romano-British period with widespread examples of the duplicated Greek fret motif appearing on mosaics.

The fylfot is known to have been very popular amongst these incoming tribes from Northern Europe, as it is found on artefacts such as brooches, sword hilts and funerary urns.

[9] Although the findings at Sutton Hoo are most instructive about the style of lordly Anglo-Saxon burials, the fylfot or gammadion on the silver dish unearthed there clearly had an Eastern provenance.

[11] As the parish guide states, the fylfot or gammadion can be traced back to the Roman catacombs where it appears in both Christian and pagan contexts.

In Cambridge it is found in the baptismal window of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, together with other allied Christian symbols, originating in the 19th century.

A similar usage is to be found in the Central Congregational Church in Providence, Rhode Island, USA, installed in 1893.

[citation needed] This is probably an example where pagan and Christian influence both have a part to play as the fylfot was amongst other things the symbol of Thor, the Norse god of thunder[20][unreliable fringe source?]

[21][unreliable source] In modern heraldry texts, the fylfot is typically shown with truncated limbs, rather like a cross potent that's had one arm of each T cut off.

Parker (1894) includes it in his A glossary of terms used in heraldry, noting that only one instance occurs on coats of arms, that of Chamberlayne.

[24] However, the word and symbol continue to have major religious significance for Buddhists, Hindus, Jains and other eastern faiths.