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BY H. COLLEY MARCH, M.D.

N the last volume (48 ii.) of the Archæologia, published by the Society of Antiquaries, appears an article by Mr. Robert Philips Greg, on the Fylfot.

This device-otherwise called Gammadion, crux gothica, croix gammée, and croix cramponnée, as well as, in India, swastika and sauvastika-is a four-legged cross, with the feet all turned in the same direction relatively to the legs. A somewhat similar device, having however only three legs, is called triskele.

Mr. Greg, who discusses and opposes the various views that have been offered in explanation of the fylfot, propounds a theory of his own. Believing it to be altogether wrong, and having, moreover, certain opinions on the subject myself, I venture to bring them to the notice of this Society. And I would begin by adverting to the general history of all such devices. They passed through four stages of existence. I. At the outset each sign represented some form or some fact in nature; a thing or a phenomenon. Thus the zigzag was the mark, letter, or sign of lightning. 2. Next, the sign of the concrete grew to be the symbol of the abstract. The zigzag of lightning, for example, became the emblem of power, as in the thunderbolts grasped by

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Jupiter; or it stood alone for the supreme god; and thus the sign developed into the ideograph (ideogram). 3. Afterwards, when the fulness and beauty of such ideas were degraded, when their evolution had culminated and had fallen back into involution or retrogression, the ideograph came to have no more than a mystical meaning. The zigzag, for instance, was no longer used as a symbol of the deity, but was applied auspiciously, or, as we should say, for luck. 4. The last stage was reached when the sign ceased to be even mystical or auspicious, and appeared merely as an ornamental device, either in needless repetition of itself or worked up in combination with other designs; as when the zigzag in conjunction with the sign of water is employed for simply decorative purposes.

As regards any particular symbol, then, it is important to ascertain, not what it meant at last or in the midst of its course of development, but what was its primary and original significance; and in any such attempt one may be quite sure of this, that in the first instance the sign resembled the thing symbolised. So that we may agree at once with Mr. Greg in setting aside the notion that the fylfot signified water. There is no likeness between the two. But besides this, the fylfot is found in apposition with the meander, showing that water, at any rate, is what the fylfot does not mean (fig. 7).

A second theory, and one that is combated by Mr. Greg, is that the fylfot, and especially the swastika of India or the Indian fylfot, was the emblem of fire, and a sign of the firechurn or arani. This is the view advocated by Bernouf, who makes the fylfot identical with the "mystic double arani" mentioned in one of the Vedic hymns to Agni, the fire god. Now, in Sanscrit, arani means the wood of the Ficus Religiosa, used for kindling fire by attrition. Two pieces of this wood are rubbed together, a horizontal and a vertical piece, and the word arani, in the dual number, signifies these

two pieces of wood. The "mystic double arani," then, would be indicated by two lines, one horizontal and one vertical, and such a sign is found in the hammer of Thor (fig. 13); a suitable emblem for the god of thunder and lightning the wielder of heaven's own fire. It is found also among the emblems of ancient Egypt. The arani or firedrill is by some antiquaries associated with the complete cross, symbolically used for the sun, or, with the crux ansata, the emblem of fertility, though to these signs better meanings can be given. But assuredly no likeness can in fairness be said to lie between the fire-churn and the fylfot. Moreover, in addition to the fire-churn, there is a recognised symbol for fire (fig. 7), and both these are found in apposition with the fylfot; so that here again fire, at any rate, is what the fylfot does not mean. And this conclusion is confirmed by the fact referred to by Mr. Greg, that the swastika is not to be met with as a symbol among the followers of Zoroaster, nor on the coins of the Sassanian kings, on which fire emblems are conspicuous.

The last theory attacked by Mr. Greg, and a much more formidable one, is that so well maintained by Ludvig Müller. This writer, after pointing out, what all admit, that the swastika stood for the supreme Aryan god, contends that at some early time it must have represented the sun itself, and that the sign is indicative of gyratory motion. He adds, though, that as the ancients were unaware of the sun's rotation, the intention of the sign was "the course of the sun in the sky" rather than the actual disc of the sun itself, and so became "the emblem of the divinity from whom emanates the movement of the universe." And he associates, and I think rightly associates, the fylfot and the triskele as having the same fundamental significance; but, as I shall endeavour to show, he misses their essential meaning. Against all this Mr. Greg argues that the supreme Aryan deity was Dyaus,