Black and grey Celtic knotwork cross set over rivetted armour plates, tattooed across a man's upper arm and shoulder.

Celtic knot cross on armour plating upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A large tattoo covers the upper arm and shoulder, showing a Celtic knotwork cross framed by layered metal plates with rivets along their edges. The knotwork and plates are rendered in smooth black and grey shading that gives them a three-dimensional, metallic look. The design fills the frame from top to bottom, with the subject's chest and a blurred indoor background visible at the edges.

Realism Upper arm Shoulder Celtic knot Cross Armour Rivet Knotwork

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Aud,

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The snow closed the pass the night after I left Carlisle, so I am writing from the Hart and Hound at Kirkby Fell, where the landlord has given me the settle nearest the hearth and a candle I am not to waste. The carrier who was to take this letter south has gone back to his bed, so it will wait with me until morning like the rest of us.

You will want to know about the cuirass. The man who commissioned it, a Mr Ferrers, wanted the old cross of the Galloway kings worked into the steel, but he wanted it knotted the way the monks at Whithorn cut their stone, every strand going over and under until nobody could find the end. I spent six weeks on the knot alone. I drew it on vellum with a compass and a hair-fine pen, then cut it out in thin plates and riveted those plates over the breast and shoulder pieces, so that from a distance the cross seems to sit behind the armour rather than on it.

He came to collect it at dusk on the Tuesday, and he did not look at the knotwork at all. He ran his thumb along the rivet line and asked me how many I had set. I told him four hundred and twelve. He counted them himself, twice, moving his lips, and then paid me in full with a coin that had been clipped at the edge. I have decided to think of that as a kindness.

The snow is falling thicker now. The landlord's dog has come to lie across my boots, and I think I shall sleep here, with the forge tools in my bag and the last of my ale warming in my hands.

Yours in cold iron, Edrith