Colour tattoo of three blue and orange butterflies among pink cherry blossom branches running up a calf, in a neo-traditional botanical style.

Butterflies and cherry blossom on a calf

Botanical · Calf · Colour · Photo

The tattoo shows three blue and orange butterflies with eye-like wing markings, set among pink cherry blossom flowers, buds and thin dark branches. Bold dark outlines and soft shading give the wings and petals depth, with purple accents in the blossom centres. The design runs up the calf from the bottom of the frame, with a foot visible at the lower edge of the photo.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Sister Hild,

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The cherry in the infirmary garden came into flower on Tuesday, all at once, as if someone had given the order. Brother Osric says the bees will be drunk by Thursday. I have been asked to keep the old wall tidy while the blossom lasts, which means I spend my mornings on a ladder with a bucket of lime wash and a brush that sheds bristles into everything.

Yesterday three butterflies came over the wall from the orchard side and settled on the branch I had only just pruned. Blue wings, orange at the lower edge, and on each a pair of dark rings that look so exactly like watching eyes that I stopped painting and simply stood there. Brother Osric swears they are only the markings of a common lady butterfly, but he also swears the abbot's goat can read Latin. I did not move until the sun went behind the bell tower.

Abbot Wulfric found me still on the ladder at vespers. He asked what I was staring at, and when I told him he laughed a little, then said the old chronicle records that the first tree was planted over the grave of a novice who lost his way in the snow, and that the older brothers call the butterflies his watchers on the road. I thought it foolish. Then I remembered the high pass was closed that same week, and I came down the ladder very carefully.

I have left that branch unpruned. The petals are already drifting onto my wet lime wash, and I find I do not mind the mess. Pray for me, and for the bees, who are the only ones here with any sense.

Your brother in Christ, Anselm

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