Black ink drawing on graph paper of a geometric compass rose with N, S, E and W labels, joined by a vertical line to an arrow at the top and bottom, as a tattoo design.

Compass rose and arrows tattoo design

Geometric · Black and grey · Flash

A hand-drawn design on graph paper showing a central compass rose with a solid black eight-pointed star inside a circle, with N, E, S and W labels. A vertical line runs through the rose to an open triangular arrowhead at the top and a striped chevron arrow at the bottom, with a smaller chevron below the S label. The linework is bold and uniform in black ink, with hatched lines on the diagonal points and no colour.

Geometric Blackwork Compass Compass rose Arrow Arrowhead North South East West Star

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom, the needle has been lying to us again, and I have decided to believe the stone instead. We reached the top of Hollin Scar on Tuesday with the chain half buried in heather and the wind trying to lift the theodolite off its legs. Your father would have sworn at the sky. I wrote the bearing in the field book and kept walking.

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There is an arrow cut into the rock at the summit, pointing north, the way the old cartographers drew them before anyone trusted print. Mr Pell says the iron seam under the ridge drags the brass eleven degrees east, so every line I survey is true to the stone and false to the compass. The men at the inn argue over which to trust, and they argue loudly, because they have money on the answer.

Yesterday a shepherd's boy called Eli Carr asked me which way was north. I pointed at the carved arrow instead of my brass case. He looked at me as though I had gone soft in the head. But that stone has stood longer than any seam of ore, and it will still point true when the mine is shut and the iron is forgotten.

I have left the compass in the drawer of the hut. The map goes to the office on Friday with the rose drawn in ink, eight points, each one hatched for the wind, and a small arrow set where the needle used to sit. Come home by the old packhorse road. I will leave a lamp in the front window, turned to face the way the stone points.