Colour tattoo of red and orange maple leaves with black swirling lines running up the calf, in a botanical style.

Maple leaves and swirls on a calf

Botanical · Calf · Colour · Photo

A colour tattoo of several maple leaves in red, orange and yellow runs up the calf and towards the knee, with a larger leaf at the centre and smaller leaves scattered along the top. Fine black swirling lines curl through the design and frame the leaves, and the shading gives the leaves a soft, dimensional look. The leg rests on a blue padded surface against a plain grey background.

Botanical Calf Maple leaf Leaves Swirl Foliage Autumn

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Old Ada Pryce kept the orchard behind Hallam Farm, and the maple by the gate was the only tree in the parish that had not let go of its leaves by Candlemas. Every December the wind came down off the moor and every December the leaves stayed, red as a fox's back, rattling on the bough while the hedges went bare. The men said it was a sign. Ada said it was a tree that had been asked a favour and had not yet been paid for it.

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The favour had been asked by her grandfather, a man who had sold the lower pasture to a mill owner from Leeds in a bad year and promised the maple it would stand. The mill owner cut the wall, the fields went to cinders and tarmac, and the maple was left alone in the yard with a promise nobody had written down. Each autumn it turned gold and then red and held on a little more stubbornly, as if waiting for someone to come and say the words.

On the coldest night of that winter, Ada took a lantern out to the gate with a knife, a cup of cider and the old deed to the land. She set the cup on the wall, read the deed aloud to the branches, then tore it in two and buried the half with the mill owner's name under the roots. The snow began before she reached the porch.

In the morning the leaves lay on the snow in a crimson drift across the yard, and the maple stood bare and grey against a white sky. Ada said it had finally been paid. The cider cup was empty, though nobody on the farm had drunk from it, and the gate stayed shut all the way to spring.