Black ink drawing of a vintage compass rose with a fleur-de-lis above and an N, on an aged parchment background, shown as a tattoo design.

Compass rose with fleur-de-lis design

Black and grey · Flash

A black ink drawing of an eight-point compass rose sits within a dashed circle and ring of tick marks. A fleur-de-lis rests above it, with a letter N above that and a dashed vertical line running from the fleur-de-lis through the compass to the base. The linework is bold and sketchy with solid black shading on the points, set on a cream parchment background with darker brown edges.

Compass Compass rose Fleur-de-lis North Dashed line Circle

Find an artist for this

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

The dry grass had already gone the colour of weak tea when Tom and I reached the old boundary stone, and the wasps were drunk on the windfalls under the Bramleys. Our grandfather had pegged this line himself in the summer of 1961, a length of tarred string pulled taut from the iron gatepost at the lane to the compass cut into the oak stump at the far hedge. He never let either of us forget that the orchard was allowed to grow only north, and never farther than the string.

Keep reading

The buyer's surveyor had a laser that blinked red across the stubble and a clipboard that he kept tapping with his pen. He wanted the line straight, he said, and Tom wanted it straight too, because a straight line meant forty acres could go to the developer in one piece and the cottage could go to whoever could afford a cottage. I held the end of the tape at the gatepost and watched the faint trail of worn grass run north through the trees like a stitch.

Tom reached the stump first. Under a flap of loose bark he found what neither of us had known was there: a column of pencil tallies, one for every September, and beside each one a few words in our grandmother's round hand. Most said only the names of the pickers. The last, from 1994, said, Walked the line to the stump, the fruit kept well.

Tom read it twice and didn't say anything. The surveyor asked again whether we were ready. I unpinned the tape, let it coil on the grass in a loose brown ring, and told him the line would stay where feet had worn it, which was the only boundary anyone in our family had ever honoured.