Black and grey Celtic triquetra knot tattoo with swirling linework and dots, placed on the upper back.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Celtic triquetra knot with swirls on the back

Blackwork · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A black and grey tattoo of a triquetra, a three-pointed interlaced Celtic knot, is centred in the frame. Thin, flowing swirls extend outwards from the knot on both sides, finished with clusters of solid dots. The knot is shaded in solid black with smooth, even lines, and the skin around it is shown in soft grey tones against a plain background.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The net snagged on the third pull, and Tomas swore in the Gaelic his mother used when the priest was in earshot, which was how you knew the sea had got under his skin. You kept hauling. The winch screamed, the rope burned through your gloves, and somewhere beneath the hull the cod were sliding out of the mesh like coins from a purse.

Keep reading

Port Carrick had three boats left that season, the Morag, the Ellen Rae and the old Brightwater, and the three of you had grown up in the same lean-to shed on the harbour wall, sharing one rope locker and one bad temper. Your grandmother had knotted a bit of cord into a three-cornered loop for each of you before you could swim, and told you the knot had no beginning and no end. You thought that was rubbish at ten. She was right about the knot. It is the loops that trouble a sailor.

The Brightwater went down in February, off the Skerry Bank, in a squall that came out of nothing. Tomas brought the Ellen Rae in with the lights of the other boats strung along the water like spilt sugar, and you counted them twice, and then a third time, because your grandmother had taught you that too.

Last night you went down to the wall and tied the cord to the rail, three points for the three of you who were still breathing. The spray was curling off the breakwater in long pale swirls, and the lights of the fleet came on one by one across the bay, and you stood there until the wind pulled the knot tight and held it.

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