Upper arm tattoo of an ornate spade with teal filigree scrolls and black lettering reading We're all mad here, in a decorative lettering style.

Ornate spade with 'We're all mad here' lettering

Lettering · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

The design is a spade shape built from ornate filigree scrollwork, with the words WE'RE ALL MAD HERE set in large, decorative black lettering across its centre. The scrollwork and the spade's stem are shaded in teal and blue-green, while the lettering is solid black with fine flourishes and serifs. The tattoo sits centred on the upper arm in a close photograph against pale skin.

Lettering Neo-trad Upper arm Spade Scrollwork Filigree Quote Lettering

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Old Brannock kept the walled garden behind the mill, and he kept it for a lady who did not like to be disappointed. Every spring she came down the gravel path with her hem dragging and counted the roses, and every spring one bush had come up white by mistake. Brannock's two boys, Pell and Tam, were sent to see to it before she reached the gate. They had a pot of red paint and a brush each, and they worked quickly, because the paint ran and the lady noticed everything.

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This year the bush was in the far corner by the sundial, and it had been white since March. Pell said the sap was to blame, and Tam said it was the frost, and while they argued the red dripped onto the gravel in small coins. A shadow crossed the wall. It belonged to the knave of the old pack, who had come over from the market with a sack of seed and no money, and he watched the paint for a while before he spoke.

'You are painting the wrong thing,' he said. 'Paint the leaves black and nobody counts the petals. Everyone in this garden is mad, so you may as well paint it how you like.' So they did. Pell laid the black on so thick it looked like wet slate, and Tam, who could not bear a mistake, fixed each spade-shaped leaf with a curl of blue at its stem. When the lady came through the gate she stopped, tilted her head, and said nothing at all, which was the nearest she ever came to kindness.

That evening the boys sat on the mill wall and watched the knave walk off toward the market with the empty sack over his shoulder. Pell asked him where the money had gone. 'The same place as the sense,' he said, and he laughed all the way down the lane. The bush still flowers black in the corner of the walled garden, the lady still counts, and she still says nothing.