Black and grey distressed line drawing of an ornate vintage crown with beaded arches and a jewelled band, on a white background.

Ornate vintage crown design

Black and grey · Flash

A standalone drawing of a royal crown with a beaded orb finial, arched bands edged with bead detailing, and scrolled leaf motifs at the base. The linework is bold and engraved, with a speckled, distressed texture across the shapes. It is shown in black on white with the crown centred and no body part or skin visible.

Crown Jewel Bead Scroll

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Sit closer, you lot, and mind the candle, it has already eaten one of my sleeves. You want the tale of Hespa the goldsmith's girl, who was asked by the old king of Calder to make him a crown, and who made him one so heavy with beads that it bowed his neck like a wet reed.

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She worked three winters on it in a shed behind the forge, with the wind coming through the boards and the coals going grey. Every arch she bent by hand, and every bead she rolled between her palms until it was round enough to pass for a pea that had never seen a field. At the base she set the leaves that curl like a fern in the first frost, and on top she fixed an orb no bigger than a plum, pitted all over where the hammer had kissed it too often. The king loved it. He put it on at the feast and everyone stood up and cheered, and the bowl of his skull seemed to sink into the metal the way a pot sinks into a soft bank.

Now here is the part the priests leave out. Hespa had cut one bead a little crooked, on purpose, down near the left arch, where nobody would look. When they asked her why, she said a crown ought to know it is only borrowed, and a crooked bead is how the metal remembers the hand that made it. The king laughed at that and paid her in silver, and the silver is still in this town, which is how you know the story is true.

So when you go home tonight, look at the nearest bright thing and find its one wonky bead. You will not find it at once. That is the joke.