Small black fine line tattoo of two crossed arrows with the letters N, E, S and W, on the inner forearm above a gold watch strap.

Crossed arrow compass on a forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows two thin black arrows crossing at their centres, with the letters N, E, S and W placed at the points of a compass. The linework is fine and even, and the ink is solid black with no shading. The tattoo sits near the wrist on a light-skinned forearm, with a gold watch strap above it and a black and white patterned fabric and checked cuff in the background.

Fine line Forearm Compass Arrow North East South West Letter

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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

The needle in the binnacle had given up after the squall off Flamborough, swinging between north and something that was not north at all. Captain Lowe wanted the Mary Gale turned for home and the mate wanted her turned for Hull, and both stood on the wet deck shouting at the brass as if it might take a side. Ada Carr did not go up. She stayed in the galley with the bread board, scrubbed pale from thirty years of her grandmother's kneading, and took the carving knife to it.

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Tom Brisk, the cabin boy, watched from the hatch with a dishcloth in his fist. 'You're cutting the board, missus.' 'I'm cutting the wind,' she said, and drew two long lines across the grey wood, crossing at their middles. At each end she scratched a letter, N, E, S and W, the way her grandmother had taught her, and at the tip of each line she carved a feather. 'An arrow goes where its feathers point it. The sea never argues with a thing that's been loosed true. Now hold it level and tell me where the spray's coming from.'

Tom held the board flat while the stove ticked and the kettle sulked. Ada licked a finger, lifted it, and turned the wood until the north arrow lay against the cold breath creeping under the door. 'There. Wind's north-east, so we've got our backs to the land and our bow to the open. Tell the captain the arrow says bear up for the coal staithes.' Tom ran. The captain laughed, then didn't, then ordered the helm over, and the Mary Gale limped into Scarborough three days later with her sails in ribbons.

Nobody aboard believed the board had steered them. Ada only shrugged and hung it on the galley wall. When the boy asked why her arrows crossed at the centre, right over the stove, she said that was the one place on any ship that never lost its way home.