Black and grey tattoo of a bow and radiating arrows with leaf and bud motifs, on a section of skin, placement unclear.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Bow and arrows with leaves on skin

Other · Black and grey · Photo

A bow and several arrows radiate from a central point, with three leaf or bud shapes and a small butterfly-like motif in the upper left. The design is drawn in thin outlines with light grey shading and solid black arrowheads. The composition is centred and fills most of the frame against smooth, lightly lit skin.

Other Bow Arrow Leaves Bud Star Flower

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Nobody at the Hartley wedding expected the archery. My sister had the marquee strung with bunting and a string quartet tuning in the orchard, and I had three arrows and a yew bow my grandfather carved the winter before he died. Fletching them was my wedding present to Ruth, though she thought I was simply being fussy about the feathers.

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I cut the shafts from ash that had come down in the February gales behind the church wall. Every evening that week I sat on the back step with a pot of glue and a fistful of goose feathers, trimming each vane until the edges lay even. The arrowheads I bought from a man in Ludlow who asked no questions about what they were for. On the Thursday, while I was marking the bow's string with wax, I found a pressed hawthorn bud tucked inside the grip, and a sprig of something brown and papery folded into the wrapping, as if someone had meant to leave it there for later.

On the day, I stood at the edge of the lawn where the grass ran down to the brook and waited for the vicar to finish. Ruth's new husband laughed when I drew, then stopped laughing when the first arrow hit the hay bale with a paper star pinned to it. The second went wide into the hedge. The third I kept back.

Ruth found me afterwards with the bow across my knees, her train muddy at the hem. "You could have asked," she said. I told her what Grandad always said, that a bow should be strung for the thing it means to do. She sat down beside me in the wet grass and held out her hand for the last arrow.