Black and grey lion face framed by roses and crystals in a blackwork and dotwork style on the upper thigh.

Lion face and roses on the thigh

Blackwork · Thigh · Black and grey · Photo

A lion's face is shown head on, with its eyes, nose and mane detail, surrounded by three roses and small faceted crystals arranged in a rounded wreath. The bold black outlines are contrasted with fine stippled dot shading on the lion's face and the petals, which gives it soft tonal depth. The design is in black ink and grey only, and it sits centrally on the outer side of a thigh against a plain skin background.

Blackwork Dotwork Botanical Thigh Lion Rose Crystal Flower Mane Wreath

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The dust off the Ferris wheel gets into everything, and by the third night in Cold Ashby you have stopped trying to wash it out of your collar. Your mother ran the coconut shy for twenty-two years and never once let a child leave without a prize. You have inherited her cash tin, her spare pins and her habit of standing with one hand on the lion's cage as if it might bolt. The lion is called Marigold, though nobody in the fair has ever called her anything but the Duchess. She is old and her mane has gone the colour of wet sand.

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On the Thursday a boy with a torn jacket lingers by the cage long after the crowd has gone. He asks whether the Duchess can see the roses painted on the caravan wall, the ones Gran drew in tin-pot paint, three blooms and a cluster of cut glass beads for dew. You tell him she can see everything, which is what your mother used to say, and then you go back to counting coins. When you look up again he has gone, and so has the padlock from the cage door. The Duchess sits on her straw with her great head level, looking at you as if you owe her an answer.

You find them at the edge of the field where the hedge breaks open onto the river road. She has walked out of the fairground with the grace of someone who has never once been asked to hurry. The boy is holding a sack of peanuts, offering her one at a time. You stand still and let her come to you, the way your mother taught you. When her nose brushes your hand it is warm and dry as a sun-baked stone. Behind you the gaff lights flicker on, one by one, and somewhere a tannoy calls for the last ride. You turn her back toward the field, and she goes without a sound.