Pop into any souvenir shop in the Basque Country, stroll through the old town of Bilbao and you’ll see it. It’s everywhere. So on my way from Bilbao I bought a box of lauburu-shaped candies to make, um, a bigger lauburu, why not.
According to Wikipedia, lauburu or Basque cross “is a symbol of the Basque Country and the unity of the Basque people”, in spite of its almost certainly non-Basque origin. Just like swastika, lauburu could be either left-handed or right-handed.
The word lauburu is probably derived from Latin labarum (as in Cantabrian labarum), folk-etymologically reinterpreted by Basques as “four heads” (lau “four” + buru “head”). It is highly unlikely that it was the other way round, as one Fidel Fita suggested, viz. that labarum was adapted by Romans from Basque.
More photos related to lauburu, Basque country and candy @ Shutterstock.
