Black and grey blackwork band tattoo on a forearm, with a white ampersand left as negative space in the solid black ink.

Ampersand band on a forearm

Blackwork · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A solid black band wraps around the inner forearm, with a large white ampersand left as clear skin in the centre. The ink is fully solid with crisp edges, and the rest of the arm is bare skin with fine body hair. The black and white photograph is framed close, with the band filling the middle of the image against a dark background.

Blackwork Lettering Forearm Ampersand Band Symbol

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Osric, forgive the smudge on this sheet. I have been at the lectern since Lauds and my fingers will not stop shaking. The abbot came down to the scriptorium this morning and stood over my desk while I ruled the margins for the great psalter. He asked me why I had spent four days on one small letter.

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It is no letter at all, but the sign we call et, the knotted and that the old copyists scratched into every line. I wanted it to stand apart from the words around it. So I laid a black ground across the whole field, thick as a thumb's width, and let it dry flat for two days without bleeding. Then I scraped the ampersand out with pumice, so the bare vellum showed through the dark like bone through a sleeve.

The abbot said the brothers would read it as a hole in the page. Brother Eadmer, who squints at everything now, said it looked like two men leaning on each other in the rain. I told them it means and, and that nothing in this house can hold together without it. The abbot went out without answering. But at Vespers the ampersand was still there, and someone had traced its loop in thin gold, very carefully, so the candlelight caught it.

Come at Michaelmas and see it for yourself. Bring a fresh pumice stone and tell me honestly whether it looks like a hole. Your brother in Christ, Wulfric.