Fine line black ink tattoo of a bow and arrow with curling scroll ornaments on the ankle.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Bow and arrow with scrollwork on an ankle

Fine line · Ankle · Black and grey · Photo

A single black ink tattoo shows a bow with an arrow nocked across it, outlined in thin lines. Ornamental scrolls and swirls decorate the curve of the bow and the bowstring, and small flourishes sit near the arrowhead. The design is in black only and sits centred on the side of a pale ankle, with a dark fabric hem at the top of the frame.

Fine line Ankle Bow Arrow Scrollwork Swirl Ornament

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The yew had split along its belly the week before the abbot's nephew came to hunt, and Brother Anselm was the only one at Saint Ebba's who knew how to bind it without the wood weeping sap through the glue. He worked at the bench by the mill race with the door propped open, scraping old varnish back to pale grain while pigeons argued in the eaves.

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Brother Osric came by with his pot of ink and asked if he might draw on it. Anselm said a bow was for pulling, not admiring, and that ink would only slow the string. Osric smiled and began on the upper limb, a thin vine that curled at the tip like bindweed on a gate, then looped down the belly and over the grip. He drew a small flourish beside the nock, a leaf of a point, and blew on it until it dried.

Ralf, the abbot's nephew, was a tall boy with a fine horse and little patience. He took the bow to the far field on the feast of Saint Giles and loosed at a stag grazing under the hedge. The shaft went high, struck the gate and dropped into the nettles. Ralf swore and reached for another arrow, but the stag lifted its head, looked straight across the grass at him, and walked away without hurry. Ralf blamed the scrolls. Anselm only said the string had been true, and that a bow was no better than the hand that drew it.

That evening Anselm hung the bow on the peg above the bench, where the window light caught the black curls. Osric came to look and said the vine had grown a little on the walk back. Anselm did not disagree, and he did not take the bow down again.