Black and grey Celtic cross tattoo with interlace knotwork, a ring and a purple gem at the centre, on the upper back of a person seen from behind.

Celtic cross with purple gem on upper back

Back · Mixed · Photo

A Celtic cross sits on the upper back, with a knotwork ring behind the arms and a purple gem at the centre. The lower shaft holds interlace panels and a goblet-like shape with a small round motif. The linework is bold and black, with grey shading and white highlights, and the purple gem is the only colour.

Back Knotwork Interlace

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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

The cattle grid rattles under the van long before the dust shows, and by then you have already counted the water: two bottles, one half full, and the chalice-shaped flask Aunt Morwenna pressed on you at Holyhead, the one she swore held more than it looked. You drive with the window down because the air conditioning died somewhere past Barstow, and the road ahead is a grey ribbon laid across the flats as if someone forgot to finish it.

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The last sign said Quartz Hollow, forty miles. It is a lie, or a tired man's guess. Nothing out here stays where the map puts it. At the second dry wash you stop, step out, and the heat lands on your chest like a hand. The purple stone you prised from your father's old reliquary sits on the dashboard where you left it, the size of a thumbnail. You turn it over. It is warm, and it seems to hum faintly against your palm, though that may just be the heat talking.

A jackrabbit goes past with its ears flat. You follow it because it knows the ground better than the paper does. The sand paths loop and cross, rising to a low ridge where a stone cross stands half sunk, its arms worn to suggestion, a ring of carved vine circling its head. Someone has left a tin cup at its foot, still holding rainwater from a week that never came.

You pour your last bottle into the cup, slowly, and wait. The sand drinks it in seconds. Then, far off, a truck horn sounds twice, and you laugh, because it means there is a road out there with traffic on it, and the one you are standing on has carried you this far.