Knotwork band tattoo on a ring finger

Orla Venn ran a forge at the edge of the fen, where the eels came in on the tide. A fisherman's girl called Maud came to her one wet March wanting a band of silver that could not be cut off. Orla didn't ask why. She drew three strands on a slate, then wove them over and under until the lines looped back on themselves like a ditch that eats its own tail. There was no start and no end. Run your finger along it, she said, and you'll go round forever and never reach the place you began.

Maud wore it through the summer. Then the autumn gale came up the estuary, and her father's boat was out past the bar. She sat at the window with the ring turning on her finger, counting the crossings with her thumb, over, under, over, until the light came grey and the boat came in with one man bailing and one man lashed to the mast with rope. Her father was alive, and the ring had not held him. It had only kept her sitting still while the tide turned.

So when you ask me what a knot is for, pet, I'll tell you what Maud told me. It holds what you give it. It lets go of what you cannot carry. Now see there, the nurse is coming with the chart, and she's got that look that means you're to sleep.