Traditional style tattoo of a blue Dala horse with yellow floral patterns and bold black outlines, on the forearm.

Blue Dala horse on a forearm

Traditional · Forearm · Colour · Photo

A blue Dala horse, the traditional Swedish carved wooden figure, is shown in profile with yellow flower motifs and dark scrollwork across its body. Bold black outlines define the shape, with flat blue fill and simple yellow shading on the petals. The horse is centred on the lower arm against plain skin and a patterned dark background.

Traditional Forearm Horse Flower

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The snow had started again by the time Mira Holm reached the hut at the crossing, and the officer, Anders Vik, had already decided she was the last traveller of the day. She set a wooden bag on the counter and unwrapped it slowly, the way someone might unwrap a loaf. Inside lay a small carved horse, no longer than her palm, painted the blue of a lake under ice, with yellow flowers climbing its neck and running down its legs.

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"Anything to declare?" he asked, reaching for the form. "Only the horse," she said. "It was my grandfather's. He carved it the winter the river froze and the men walked across to the mill. It has never been further than the next valley."

Anders turned the figure over and found a pencilled date on its belly, faded almost to nothing. It reminded him of the horse on his own grandmother's windowsill, the one that had gone missing after the funeral and never turned up. He thought of the paint flaking off that old hoof, and of how long a thing can stay in one place before it starts to look like it belongs there.

He wrote nothing on the form except the word "gift", then slid the horse back into its wrapping and handed it across. Mira left without another word, and the snow closed over her tracks before she reached the road. Anders set the empty bag aside and stood the horse on the sill beside the stove, where the warmth could reach it. In the morning the yellow flowers on its flank had caught the lamplight and seemed to open.