Black fine line compass rose with a fleur-de-lis above the north point and the words Not all those who wander are Lost beside it, tattooed on a forearm.

Compass rose and quote on a forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A compass rose sits on the forearm with a fleur-de-lis at the top, marked by a small N above it and a long needle extending below. The quote Not all those who wander are Lost is set in italic lettering to the right, with some words in bolder strokes. The image is black and grey with crisp, thin linework and solid black accents in the compass points, shown in a close, centred view.

Fine line Lettering Forearm Compass Compass rose Fleur-de-lis Quote Text

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The needle on the brass compass in Hettie Moss's hand had stopped pointing north the week the Carlisle line flooded, and she said so to anyone who would stand still at the ticket hatch. Nobody stood still for long. The trains came through Thornbury Junction every eleven minutes, and the people who got off them wanted platform numbers, not the opinions of a woman with wet boots.

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Her grandfather had been a signalman there, and he left her the compass with a fleur-de-lis pressed into the lid where the north should be. He told her once that the lily was for the French who had built the first lines, and the needle was for the men who ran them. A good compass, he said, showed you the way home even when you had not asked to go anywhere.

On the third morning of the flood a boy came off the Leeds train with a cardboard suitcase and no ticket. He asked which way was north. Hettie opened the lid and turned the dial until the needle settled. "Ask the lily," she said. "It knows more than the rails do." He laughed, then stopped, because she was not smiling.

She walked him to the bridge and pointed at the long grey sheet of water. He could go over it or round it, and round meant four miles of drowned lanes. He chose the lanes. She watched him go until the hedges took him, then folded the compass shut. The needle still swung, though it had never once pointed true, and she kept it in her coat pocket all the same.