Fine black line tattoo of a circle inscribed in a square on the inner upper arm, shown in a close-up photo.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Circle inscribed in a square on an upper arm

Fine line · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A thin black outline of a circle sits inside a square, with the circle touching the midpoint of each side. The linework is even and crisp, with no shading, and the design is a single small motif. The photo is a close, slightly angled view of the inner arm against a blurred grey top and a dark background.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

In the kingdom of Harrowmere the cartographers quarrelled for three generations over the shape of the royal seal. The old king wanted a circle, because a circle has no corners for enemies to hide behind. His daughter Ysolde wanted a square, because a square keeps what it holds and never rolls away in the night. Neither would yield, so the court sent for Brannoch the mason, who was known to be plain-spoken and slow to flatter.

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Brannoch listened to both sides in his workshop, sweeping chips of slate into a heap while they talked. When they had finished he took a length of cord, pegged one end to the floor, and drew a circle in the dust. Then he went to the four corners of the room and set his stakes so that each side of the square just touched the round edge of the circle. Nothing was lost to either party. The circle was whole, and the square was whole, and each took exactly what it needed from the other.

The king grumbled that the mason had cheated him, and Ysolde said nothing at all, but she had the seal cut that way. For a long time afterwards, people in Harrowmere said that a thing made well is a circle held by a square, and that a fair bargain touches at the middle of each side and asks for nothing more.

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