Colour tattoo of an ouroboros serpent eating its own tail, with a patterned orange, blue and grey body, on a patch of skin.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Ouroboros serpent on skin

Other · Colour · Photo

A snake biting its own tail forms an open ring, with its head at the top right of the loop. The body is shaded and patterned in orange, blue and grey, with bold outlines and small decorative bands along its length. The tattoo is shown close up against plain skin with the rest of the body out of frame.

Other Snake Serpent Pattern

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The snow had closed the Hebden road by four o'clock, and by seven the only guest still downstairs at the Fleece was Mr Abernethy, who had been turning the same length of cord over in his hands since supper. It was a thick, springy thing, banded along its length in orange, blue and a grey that looked almost like wet slate, and every few inches the bands swapped over as though the rope had been dyed in a hurry by somebody who kept changing their mind.

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"My grandfather walked rope at Whitby," he said, without looking up. "He had a rule. You never leave two ends lying loose in a house. Bring them round and work the last strand back into the first, and then nothing in the place can come undone." He held the join up to the lamp. I could not find it. The bands ran straight on through the seam as if the cord had never been cut.

I asked him why anybody would want a rope with no end. He smiled and said a loop had nothing to lose, which I thought was the sort of thing men say after their second whisky, though he had only had tea. Outside the wind dragged snow across the yard in long pale ribbons, and the bell on the coaching arch clanked every time a gust caught it.

When the plough came through the next morning he was gone before breakfast, leaving the cord on the hook above the fire. It hung there in a neat ring, the head end resting against its own tail, the bands catching the light. I tried to unpick the seam with my thumbnail, then with the bread knife, and gave up. The road was clear by noon, and the ring stayed where it was, turning very slightly whenever someone opened the door.