A cross whose arms end in arrowheads is called a "cross barby" or "cross barbee" in the traditional terminology of heraldry. In Christian use, the ends of this cross resemble the barbs of fish hooks, or fish spears. This alludes to the Ichthys symbol of Christ, and is suggestive of the "fishers of men" theme in the Gospel.
In modern use, the symbol has become associated with extremist organisations after the Arrow Cross (Nyilaskereszt) symbol was used in Hungary in the 1930s and 1940s as the symbol of a Hungarian National Socialist political party, the Arrow Cross Party. The symbol consists of two green double-ended arrows in a cross configuration on a white circular background, much like the German Nazi swastika. The arrow cross symbol remains outlawed in Hungary.
A similar symbol, the Crosstar, is now used by the Nationalist Movement, a white supremacist group based in the United States. Both are basically the arrow cross symbol.
Famous quotes containing the words arrow and/or cross:
“It is easy to dodge a spear in the daylight, but it is difficult to avoid an arrow in the dark.”
—Chinese proverb.
“It is an agreeable change to cross a lake, after you have been shut up in the woods, not only on account of the greater expanse of water, but also of sky. It is one of the surprises which Nature has in store for the traveler in the forest. To look down, in this case, over eighteen miles of water, was liberating and civilizing even.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)