Black and grey blackwork tattoo of a woman in a feathered headdress drawing a bow, on the side of the ribs.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Feathered archer woman on the ribs

Blackwork · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A woman in a feathered headdress with geometric patterned clothing draws a bow with an arrow nocked, shown in profile. The tattoo uses bold black outlines, hatched geometric fills and small dotted accents, with the bow and arrow drawn in fine lines. The design is in black and grey and sits across the side of the ribs on pale skin.

Blackwork Geometric Dotwork Ribs Woman Bow Arrow Geometric pattern Profile Dot

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The snow had sealed the pass for nine days, and the eleven guests at the Hollin Inn had eaten the cheese, the salt pork and the last of the barley loaves. Marta Veen, who kept the kitchen, had started counting the candles. So when the archer came down from the top room with a bow across her back and a hawk's feathers pinned into her black plait, nobody asked where she was going. They only asked whether she meant to leave.

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She said she had heard a bell on the ridge, one that rang without a rope. Old Tobin laughed into his ale. But she walked out into the wind full of needles, and the others, cold and bored, followed her to the yard gate to watch. Beyond the stable roof a line of dark shapes moved along the white, slow as thread pulled through cloth, and she set an arrow to the string.

She loosed once. The arrow hissed over the drifts and struck the frozen sign above the door, the painted sheaf of barley, and the bell beneath it gave a single clear note. The shapes turned and went back up into the cloud. Nobody spoke. Then Marta saw the snow lifting off the path in long pale ribbons, as if someone had found the end of a thread and drawn it gently free.

By morning the road ran open to the valley. The archer had gone before dawn, and the arrow was still lodged in the sign. Marta took it down, rubbed the shaft with goose fat, and hung it over the hearth, where it stayed until the next winter, when she took it down again and polished it for the pass.