fylfot

The fylfot or fylfot cross ( ) and its mirror image, the gammadion, are types of truncated swastika, associated with medieval Anglo-Saxon culture. It is a cross with perpendicular extensions, usually at 90° or close angles, radiating in the same direction. However at least in modern heraldry texts, such as Friar and Woodcock & Robinson (see ) 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 the word is that it comes from a belief, common among 19th-century antiquarians but based only on a dubious reading of the British Library's Lansdowne manuscript 874, that the word referred to the device a swastika shown in the main part of the image on of a stained-glass memorial window to Thomas Froxmere in the parish church of Droitwich Spa in Worcestershire. Subsequent analysis of the manuscript by lexicographer Henry Bradley explained that the word was an instruction to the painter to fill empty space at the foot. This etymology is often cited in modern dictionaries (such as the Oxford English Dictionary, the Collins English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster Online).