Two people seen from behind with matching shoulder tattoos: a knotwork crescent moon in grey and blue on the left, and a pink-shaded celtic knot medallion on the right, each with lettering around it.

Crescent moon and celtic knot tattoos on shoulders

Shoulder · Mixed · Photo

Two shoulders are shown from behind, each with a tattoo. The left shows a crescent moon filled with interwoven knotwork, shaded in grey with a soft blue wash, with curved text running along its edge. The right shows a round celtic knot medallion with a pink shaded background and lettering arranged around it. Both tattoos sit on bare skin against a plain light background with a framed painting of a beach behind them.

Shoulder Crescent moon Celtic knot Knotwork Medallion Lettering Text

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell, the moon has gone thin over the Bay of Biscay and I have burnt the bread twice this week because I keep looking up at it through the galley porthole. Cook Harrow says a crescent is only the shadow the earth throws, half light and half dark, and that is why sailors trust it. I told him it was the knots I trusted. Every rope on the Marigold was spliced by someone who learnt it from someone else, and the bosun's knot he taught me is the one I have been working into a tin lid for the spice rack, a little crown of twine.

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Piet, the lad from Ostend who scrubs the pans, cut his thumb on the fish knife on Tuesday and I bound it with a strip of blue cloth from the dish rags. He asked what the pattern meant. I said it was a way of keeping hold of things that might otherwise slip, and he laughed and said that was what the cook told him about bread dough. He is not wrong. Half the crew think the galley is the only warm place aboard, and they are right, which is why I keep the kettle on even in the dog watches.

The captain's wife sent a note with the last pilot boat. She wants a round medallion worked in the sail-thread, something to pin on her shawl when we reach Lisbon. I have started it in red, though the beetroot in the stockpot has stained my fingers the colour of it, so the knot will come out pinker than she asked. I think she will like it better that way.

When we dock I will walk up from the quay with the lid under my arm and the medallion in my pocket. Tell Mam the bread is rising, even if I am not, and tell her I have started counting the days in knots instead of moons.