Black and grey lettering reading IRON BORN with a crossing arrow on a forearm, beside a black spider web tattoo, with redness around the fresh ink.

Iron Born lettering with arrow on a forearm

Lettering · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo reads IRON BORN in block capitals, with a single thin black arrow passing through the lettering and ending in a stylised fletching on the right. Above it sits a black spider web design, and below it a partly visible dagger and a cup or bowl with playing cards. The ink is solid black and grey, and the skin around the lettering is red and slightly inflamed, suggesting the tattoo is fresh.

Lettering Forearm Arrow Spider web Dagger Cup Playing card

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell, the spider's back in the rafters above the Palais, so you can tell Mother I'm not sleeping under the bar as she fears. Mr Pryce has hung a new lamp over the floor and the whole room smells of Brylcreem and wet coats. I've been dealing for Solly Marr on the back tables since Tuesday, and the cards like me better than I like them.

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Solly calls the new lad Iron Born, because he came off the Clydeside boats with nothing but a sack and a grudge, and he has never once lost a hand he meant to win. Last night he sat across from the Ferris brothers with a tumbler of Dutch gin at his elbow and a pencil behind one ear, and he made the old men fold one after another. Nobody thought to ask whether the luck was in the cards or in the way he held the glass.

Then the band struck up Let Me Call You Sweetheart and the floor filled, and I saw Solly's hand go still on the deck. The Ferris eldest had slid a silver letter knife across the felt, meaning it as a joke, and it caught the lamplight and every head turned. Solly laughed, too loud, and picked up his cup. He drank the lot, set it down, and said a good hand is knowing when the other fellow's luck has run out.

I'm writing this on the back step with the tunes still coming through the wall. When you visit Saturday, look at the board above the door, where Pryce has painted the name of the lad's dog on the greyhound card. Solly swears the arrow in the lettering points the way luck goes. I told him that's a poor sort of compass. He only tipped his hat and asked me to deal him in.