Black ink drawing of a compass rose tattoo design with feather accents on the west and south points and a dotted central medallion.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Compass rose with feathers

Geometric · Black and grey · Flash

The drawing shows a compass rose with the letters N, E, S and W at the cardinal points, each arm ending in a diamond or feather. A dotted circle with a stylised floral centre and short radiating rays sits at the middle. The thin, even linework is in black ink on a plain pale background, with no shading beyond light hatching in the feathers.

Geometric Fine line Compass Compass rose Feather Mandala Letter Sunburst

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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

No, sit closer, the fire is only just taking, and you will hear the rest or walk out onto the cliff road not knowing which way is north. Brother Anselm was the one who painted the rose on the chapter house wall, the winter the salt came up through the sluice. He had the whole coast in his head, every bay and shoal, but he could not tell the wind from his own sleeve.

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So he went to the gulls. The novices gathered every feather they found along the sea wall, and Anselm cut a quill from each one and drew the four arms with crow ink, starting from a dotted ring at the middle. Inside the ring he set a flower of six petals, and round its rim he scratched short rays, the way the sun comes off wet slate. He lettered the points in red ochre. At the north he put a diamond for the star that never moves, and at the south he hung a feather, because that is the way the boats come home from.

The abbot called it foolishness. Then the fog came down on the Thursday and six boats were out past the Skerries. Anselm carried his chart to the headland and held it up against the grey, turning it until the west feather lay along the wind. It was the wind that found them in the end, not the letters. The boats came round the point one by one, following the thin line of ink to the bell tower, and the last one in was Tomas, who had sworn he knew the way home blind.

The rose is still on the chapter house wall. When the wind comes from the west, the feather on that arm seems to lift, and the old men say that is Anselm checking his work.