Black linework tattoo of a one-eyed cartoon figure with the word HAM on its body, placed on the lower leg.

One-eyed figure labelled HAM on a leg

Calf · Black and grey · Photo

A cartoon figure with a single eye on a tall neck, a rounded pear-shaped body and two thin legs, with the word HAM across the body. The fine black outline is combined with cross-hatched shading on the body and a small patch of ground shading beneath the feet. The design is in black ink only, set on a lower leg against a plain background.

Calf Eye Leg Creature Lettering

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Gran kept the ham in the cold pantry off the back kitchen, hung from a hook over the flour bins, and nobody was allowed to touch it until Christmas. That was the rule. So when I came down at six on the first frosty morning of December to fetch the milk and found it standing on the flagstones, I assumed I had a fever.

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It was the size of a stone hot water bottle, with a neck like a cider bottle and a single eye set in the middle of its forehead, which it rolled at me with the expression of a man who has been kept waiting. It had two thin legs, which it used to hop up onto the windowsill. The word HAM was still across its belly, faded like an old pencil mark. "Don't stare," it said. "It's rude, and I've been hanging over flour since August."

I am not proud of what I did next. I bargained. It wanted to see snow, it said, just once, before some farmer's wife with a carving knife made the decision for it. So I wrapped it in Grandad's scarf, unbolted the back door and let it out into the yard, where the cockerel took one look and fled to the byre. The ham walked out across the frost, leaving a neat line of little three-toed prints, and stopped to admire the hedge as if it had commissioned it.

That was how Gran found us, the carving knife in one hand and the kettle in the other. The ham turned its single eye towards her and said, "Morning, Edith." She looked at it for a long time. Then she set the knife down on the wall, went back inside, and came out again with a pair of Grandad's wellies, two sizes too large. The ham lifted its thin legs out of the snow one at a time, and I swear it glanced back at the kitchen window, where Gran was already reaching for the teapot.