Close-up of a black scrollwork tattoo running across the top of a foot, with a small swirl on the second toe.

Black scroll tattoo across the top of a foot

Other · Black and grey · Photo

A bare foot with red painted toenails rests on a dark leather surface, photographed from above at an angle. A black tattoo of flowing scrolls and curls runs across the top of the foot, with a small spiral on the second toe. The linework is bold and smooth, with solid black ink and no shading, and the single-colour design contrasts clearly with the skin.

Other Scroll Swirl Flourish Curl Foot

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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

Brother Anselm has already told you twice that the vellum will not wait for your mood, so you dip the reed and begin the flourish at the foot of the page where the psalm ends. The ink is oak gall, black as a cellar, and it sits on the surface without sinking in. Lauds bell rings across the wet yard while your wrist learns the long curve: out, back, a curl like a fern unrolling, then the tight spiral that Brother Anselm calls the rest of the breath.

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By the third hour the hand has settled and the page has stopped being a page. You let the tail of the line run past the margin, the way the old masters did when they wanted the eye to keep moving. Brother Anselm leans over your shoulder, sniffs, and says nothing, which from him is praise. Outside, the cart from the valley has come up the track with the winter salt, and somebody is shouting about a cracked axle.

When the sheet is dry you carry it to the chapter house on a board, holding it flat in both hands as though it might lift off. The abbot runs a thumb along the flourish and stops at the spiral, the one tucked small in the corner like a secret. He asks who taught you to end a line so that it seems to be going somewhere else. You tell him the truth: nobody did. You simply did not want the ink to stop.