Engraved-style line drawing of an ouroboros serpent forming a circle, entwined with roses, buds and leaves on a cream background, shown as a tattoo design without a body placement.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Ouroboros serpent with roses

Botanical · Black and grey · Flash

A serpent biting its own tail forms a circle, with a rose and several buds and leaves growing along its body and a trailing sprig extending to the lower left. The linework is fine and dark, with cross-hatched shading on the serpent's body and softer detail on the petals and foliage. The design is in black ink on a plain cream textured background and is centred in the frame.

Botanical Snake Serpent Rose Leaves Bud Sprig Circle

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ruth,

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The plate went to the printers on Tuesday, wrapped in oilcloth like a fish for market, and I have not slept properly since. Mr Abbott wanted a serpent for the frontispiece of his almanac of tides, the old creature that eats its own tail, and he wanted it "with a little respectability in the wing", whatever that means. I cut it at my bench above the chandlery, with the window open so the gulls could tell me what they thought of my lines.

The difficulty was the roses. Every time I closed the coil, the flower grew heavier on one side and the whole ring sagged like a wet hawser. I spent a week on the sprig alone, the three buds and the leaf that turns back on itself, until I saw it was not decoration but a counterweight. The rose sits where the serpent's breath would be, so the eye goes round and round and then stops, caught among the petals.

Last night Abbott came up the stairs with a lamp and a proof sheet still warm from the press. He held it to the light and said nothing for so long I thought he disliked it. Then he said the serpent looked as if it had been feeding on its own sweetness for a hundred years and had only just noticed. He paid me in full, and I walked home along the quay with the tide coming in under the boards.

Yours, Tom