Black and grey pencil sketch of a compass rose tattoo design with N and S letters, swirling ornamental lines and shaded points.

Compass rose design with swirls

Black and grey · Flash

A pencil drawing of a compass rose with a bold N at the top and a large S at the bottom. The compass points are shaded with hatched strokes, and a circular centre hub sits over a ring with scrolling flourishes and small dots around the outside. The design is drawn in black and grey on a pale background.

Compass Compass rose Swirl Dot

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Sit down on that upturned bucket, love, and mind the bean canes. My grandfather never owned a car worth the name, but he owned a brass compass in a leather case, and he'd walk the allotment with it every Sunday before he let anyone touch the soil. North was always the first thing he checked. Then he'd tap the glass and say, "Right, the lads at the depot have it wrong again," and set the rows by it, not by the sun.

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The year the council dug up the back field for the new road, he lost the compass. He had it in his coat on the Tuesday and by the Thursday it was gone, and he went on his hands and knees through the nettles for three evenings, swearing at the crows. Mr Pryce from over the fence, who grew nothing but marrows and grudges, told him a compass was only a needle that agreed with itself. Grandad said that was the daftest thing he had ever heard.

On the fourth morning a boy from the school found it in the drainage ditch, face down in the mud, the needle still swinging. Grandad paid him a shilling and a bag of plums. He never said what he thought the needle was pointing at, but he stopped setting the rows by it after that. He planted the south bed by the shed and let the rest grow wherever the sun wanted it.