Black compass rose tattoo with an arrow pointer and N, S, E and W letters on the inner upper arm, in a geometric style.

Compass rose on inner upper arm

Geometric · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A black compass rose sits in a circle on the inner upper arm, with an eight-point star at its centre surrounded by fine radiating lines. An arrow extends from the left and right of the ring, and the letters N, S, E and W mark the cardinal points. The tattoo is shown in black ink on a bare arm, against a plain white background with a white shirt sleeve at the top left.

Geometric Upper arm Compass Compass rose Star Arrow Letter Circle

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell, the chart is nearly finished, though Mr Pryce keeps asking why the wood is drawn so dark. I tell him it is the trees. It is not the trees. Every morning I lay the brass compass on the drawing board and wait for the needle to settle, and every morning it wanders a little west of where my pencil says north should be, as if the ground under Harrow Wood has been pulling at it all night.

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I did what you would have done and blamed the instrument first. I cleaned the pivot with spirit and sighted on the church tower, and the star on the lid still ran true to the eight points painted round its rim. The arrows I inked either side of the ring, one pointing out over the stile and one back toward the river, were the only things on the page I was sure of. The old men in the Fleece say there is a seam of iron under the roots, and that a man who walks through the wood at night comes out knowing his own name but not which way home lies.

Yesterday I walked the edge alone with the compass held flat in my palm. At the third gate the needle stopped shivering and pointed straight at the lamp in Mrs Hebden's window, which is where your light sits in my head, I suppose, with the kettle on. I took the bearing and wrote it in the field book beside the letters N, E, S and W, then sat on the wall and laughed until the sheep moved off.

So do not worry if my letters come late. I am coming home by the lane, not the wood, and I have told Pryce the forest can keep its own north. Leave the lamp in the window. I will follow it whichever way the needle wants to go.