Colour traditional tattoo of a stag head with antlers, arrows, a fleur-de-lis and a compass star on the forearm.

Stag head and compass on a forearm

Traditional · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A stag's head with large antlers sits above a fleur-de-lis and a compass star, set against a red circular backdrop with arrows crossing behind the head. The deer is shaded in browns, greys and white with smooth gradients, while the bold black outlines frame the antlers, arrows and compass star. Warm red, orange and brown ink dominate the composition, which is arranged vertically along the forearm.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nan, the stag went missing from the shooting gallery on Tuesday night, and Mr Pell has been walking the field since dawn with a lantern he doesn't need. You'll remember the head above the booth, the antlers wider than the awning, the glass eyes gone brown with forty summers of cigarette smoke. Beneath it his father painted a fleur-de-lis on the red board, because he claimed the French knew something about luck that the rest of us had forgotten.

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We found it at first light, standing by the generator lorry with the rope still knotted round its neck and the arrows still jutting from the board where it had been pulled loose. Tobias from the ring toss swore it had been looking north the whole time. He held his brass compass up to prove it, but the needle kept turning in slow circles. Pell only laughed and said a creature that leaves a fair always has somewhere better in mind.

So we followed the painted arrows along the coast road in the Bedford, the board balanced across the bench seat between us. The sea came up grey and sudden at the end of the lane, and there was the stag on the cliff edge, antlers black against a sky the colour of old pennies. It didn't run. It turned its head towards us slowly, as though it had been waiting to be asked the way.

We didn't bring it back. Pell untied the rope, I held the board steady, and the stag stepped off into the wind without looking down once. Tobias says the compass has settled now, pointing firmly at the cliff. I've left the booth's board blank where the head was, with one arrow drawn through the space, and Pell says he'll paint the stag again in spring, facing the other way. Your loving granddaughter, Hettie.

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