White stencil of a Celtic knotwork tree of life with interlaced roots and branches, set against weathered wood panels.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Celtic tree of life stencil

Black and grey · Flash

A stencil-style design of a tree of life, with a full canopy of interlaced knotwork branches and a root system that spreads into a looped border at the base. The lines are solid and cut-out, pale grey to white, and the design is shown in a single tone against dark, weathered wooden boards with soft vignetting. The composition is centred and symmetrical, with the tree filling most of the frame.

Tree Tree of life Root Knotwork Stencil Border

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You are halfway through scraping the old paint from the wheelhouse door of the Good Intent when the fleet comes round the breakwater. Under your thumbnail the pale tree is still there, the stencil your father cut with a craft knife from a template he drew on the back of a tide table. He said the branches were for the men going out and the roots were for the ones who stayed on the quay, and he never explained which one you were supposed to be.

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The gulls are loud over the slip. Dougie is shouting from the Morag Rose about a short catch, and somebody's engine coughs twice before it settles. You count the boats the way your father taught you, seven, eight, and then the Rose limping in with a split fender. The stencil has always had one flaw. Where the lowest root should meet the looped border, the knife slipped years ago, and the line stops a finger's width short, so the tree never quite holds the circle it was meant to.

You wipe the knife on your overalls and kneel on the wet boards. The wood underneath is grey and soft, and the old cut is easy to find. Slowly you take the blade along the gap, following the grain, until the root runs into the border and the whole design closes. When Dougie climbs the ladder, cursing about his fender, he stops at the door and says nothing for a moment. The white tree sits against the weathered wood as if it had always been finished.