Traditional colour tattoo of a dagger with teal scrollwork and purple flowers on the inner forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Dagger with purple flowers on a forearm

Traditional · Forearm · Colour · Photo

The tattoo shows a dagger with its tip pointing down, decorated with two purple flowers with yellow centres and green leaves, and teal scrolling ornaments curling across the top. A small teal and yellow box-shaped motif sits at the centre of the design. Bold black outlines define the shapes, filled with flat teal, purple, green and yellow ink on pale skin.

Traditional Forearm Dagger Flower Scroll Leaf

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tobias, The dagger came across the counter on Tuesday wrapped in a handkerchief that smelled of violets, and I nearly sent the man away. He wanted four shillings for it. The blade is thin as a reed and the grip is worked in curling iron, two arms of scroll that flare out like a fern uncurling, with a pair of purple flowers pinned at the crossing, each with a yellow heart and green leaves tucked round it as though they had only just been picked.

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Between the flowers sits a little box, teal and no bigger than a matchbox, with a brass catch. I opened it with the tip of a hatpin. Inside was a twist of paper and a dried sprig of something I could not name. The man said his mother had kept it on the scullery sill and that the box had been her mother's. He did not want the dagger back, he said, he only wanted it out of the house, and he could not tell me why.

I have set the dagger in the window beside the clocks. Mr Adeyemi from the chemist's stopped to look at it yesterday and said the point was turned down the way they used to present a knife to a guest who had outstayed his welcome. I told him it looked more like a gift than a warning. He laughed and said everything in this town was one or the other.

I have written the man's address on the back of the receipt, Hollin Lane, number nine. Would you take the train up on Saturday and carry the lot to him yourself? Mind the box. I do not think it is the box that matters, but I would not like to be the one to find out.