Black and grey compass rose tattoo with N, E, S and W letters on the inner forearm of a person wearing a light grey top.

Compass rose tattoo on a forearm

Geometric · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A black compass rose sits in a circular ring on the inner forearm, with an eight-pointed star at its centre and the letters N, E, S and W marking the cardinal points. The linework is bold and the points are shaded with grey tones for depth. The photo shows the tattoo centred on the forearm against a pale top and a patterned background.

Geometric Traditional Forearm Compass Compass rose Star North East South West

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The mule would not go past the dry well, so Ruth took the compass off its nail and let the animal decide. It stood a long while with its ears back, facing the white flats where nothing grew, then turned its head to the left, towards the place where the sun went down in the evenings. Ruth had been told a compass only knew one direction, and that was enough if you knew which one you wanted.

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Her grandmother had cut the rose into the brass lid herself, eight points for eight roads, and the four letters marked where the main roads began. North was the track home to the river. East was the mountains. South was the sea, which nobody in the district had ever seen. West was the road the old men took when they did not come back. Ruth had never believed the stories about the points, only the needle, which pointed where it pleased and had never once lied about it.

On the third night the needle swung and would not settle. She sat with the lamp between her boots and watched it tremble like a fly on a pane. Then she understood that the star at the centre was the thing to follow, not the letters. She turned the lid so the N faced the mule's nose and walked along the longest point of the star, which was not north at all but the narrow gap between two dunes she had taken for shadow.

By morning she came down into a valley of green reeds and a cart track with fresh wheel marks. The mule drank for a long time. Ruth closed the lid, put the compass in her pocket and told the animal, plainly, that they had done well enough. It flicked one ear, which in that country was agreement.