Black and grey dotwork tattoo of a mason jar with three fireflies inside and two more above the lid, on the outer leg.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Fireflies in a mason jar on a leg

Dotwork · Other · Black and grey · Photo

A mason jar with a ridged lid sits upright, with three fireflies inside its glass and two more hovering above the rim. The outlines are bold and black, while the jar's interior and the fireflies' glow are built up with fine stippled dots. The tattoo is in black and grey with no colour ink, set against lightly haired skin with a person's hand and finger tattoos visible at the left edge.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Old Mrs Pryce kept a jar on the windowsill of the dance hall at Caddon Bridge, and every summer evening she sent the children out to catch the lightning bugs that drifted over the reeds by the river. The village said she was simple, and the fiddler said she was a witch, but she only wanted the light for her cottage, which had no lamp and no oil to spare.

Keep reading

One year the boy Tomas caught five and held them so tightly in his cupped hands that their glow came through his fingers like coals. He ran the whole length of the lane to her door, and she took the jar from him without a word, screwed on the ridged lid, and set it on the table. The insects settled inside the glass, dotting the dark with a soft green that rose and fell like breath.

By the next harvest the dance hall had grown quiet, for the fiddler had gone off to the city and taken his tunes with him. Tomas came back to the cottage in the dusk and found the jar empty on the sill, the lid unscrewed and set aside. Mrs Pryce sat by the open door with her hands in her lap. Two fireflies were already circling above the rim, and she was watching them go up into the trees.

She told him they always go home, if you let them, and that the light is only lent. Tomas stood a long while at the sill, then took the lid and laid it on the grass, so the next ones could come and go as they pleased.

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