Everything about Fylfot totally explained
Fylfot or
fylfot cross is a
synonym for
swastika, sometimes used in
Britain.
However – at least in modern heraldry texts, such as Friar and Woodcock & Robinson (see
below) – 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.
Etymology
The most commonly cited
etymology for this is that it comes from the notion common among
nineteenth-century antiquarians, but based on only a single
1500 manuscript, that it was used to
fill empty space at the
foot of
stained-glass windows in
medieval churches. This etymology is often cited in modern dictionaries (such as the
Collins English Dictionary and
Merriam-Webster OnLine
).
However, Thomas Wilson (see
below), writing in
1896, cites other etymologies:
- "In Great Britain the common name given to the Swastika from Anglo-Saxon times ... was Fylfot, said to have been derived from the Anglo-Saxon fower fot, meaning four-footed, or many-footed."
- "The word [Fylfot] is Scandinavian and is compounded of Old Norse fiël, equivalent to the Anglo-Saxon fela, German viel, "many", and fotr, "foot", the many-footed figure." The Germanic root fele is cognate with English full, which has the sense of "many". Both fele and full are in turn related to the Greek poly-, all of which stem from the proto-Indo-European root *ple-. A fylfot is thus a "poly-foot", to wit, a "many-footed" sigil.
These etymologies are speculative and open to further consideration. Notably, the word
fylfot is completely unknown in Scandinavian languages, though words like
firfot (
Norwegian) and
fyrfot (
Swedish) do translate to "four-foot"/"four-feet".
In heraldry
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. It's also known as a
cross cramponned,
~nnée, or
~nny, as each arm resembles a
crampon or angle-iron (compare
Winkelmaßkreuz in
German).
Examples of fylfots in heraldry are extremely rare, and the charge isn't mentioned in Oswald Barron's article on "Heraldry" in most 20th-century editions of
Encyclopædia Britannica.
Parker's
Glossary of Heraldry (see
below) gives the following example:
» Argent, a chevron between three fylfots gules--Leonard CHAMBERLAYNE, Yorkshire [sodrawn in MS. Harleian, 1394, pt. 129, fol. 9=fol. 349 of MS.]
(In lieu of an image from this MS., a modern rendering of this blazon is shown on the right.)
Even in the last few centuries the fylfot is conspicuous by its absence from grants of arms (understandably so since 1945; see:
Swastika – Taboo).
Modern use of the term
From its use in heraldry - or from its use by antiquaries -
fylfot has become an established word for this symbol, in at least British English.
However, it was only rarely used. Wilson, writing in 1896, says, "The use of Fylfot is confined to comparatively few persons in Great Britain and, possibly, Scandinavia. Outside of these countries it's scarcely known, used, or understood."
In more recent times,
fylfot has gained greater currency within the areas of design history and collecting, where it's used to distinguish the swastika motif as used in designs and jewellery from that used in Nazi paraphernalia. Even though the swastika doesn't derive from Nazism, it has become associated with it, and
fylfot functions as a more acceptable term for a "good" swastika.
House of Commons Hansard Debates for 12 Jun 1996 (pt 41) reports a discussion about the badge of
No. 273 Fighter Squadron,
Royal Air Force. In this,
fylfot is used to describe the ancient symbol, and
swastika used as if it refers
only to the symbol used by the Nazis.
Odinic Rite (OR), a
Germanic pagan organization, use both "swastika" and "fylfot" for what they claim as a "holy symbol of Odinism". The OR fylfot is depicted with curved outer limbs, more like a "
sunwheel swastika" than a traditional (square) swastika or heraldic fylfot.
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