Tattoo of a purple butterfly with a black outline and black scrollwork swirls with dots on the side of a foot near the ankle.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Purple butterfly with swirls on the foot

Fine line · Ankle · Mixed · Photo

A purple butterfly with a bold black outline sits at the centre of the design, with its wings shaded in lighter and darker purple. Thin black scrollwork and dotted lines extend to the left and right, ending in curls and small tick-like marks. The tattoo is photographed on a pale foot against a dark background, with the butterfly and linework clearly visible.

Fine line Ankle Butterfly Swirl Scrollwork Dot

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The ewes were up to their knees in the lower field when the first frost came down like icing sugar, and you were the one sent to break the trough ice with the hammer. Your father had said to leave alone anything that moved that wasn't a crow, so when a purple butterfly lifted from the rim of the trough you stood with the hammer hanging at your side and watched it.

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It went to the gatepost, then to the barn roof, then came back looping in curls that looked like the tail of a pen. Where it had passed, the frost on the top rail showed a line of small dots, as if someone had pressed a stylus along it. You followed it into the hay barn, where the lamp hung on a nail and the smell of straw was thick enough to lean on.

Halfway through the second hour the ewe in the back pen started her labour, and you were kneeling in the straw with your sleeves pushed up when the butterfly came down and settled on the hook of the lamp. Its wings opened and closed slowly, the black edges catching the light. You did not stop to think about it. The lamb came small and slick and bawling, and the purple wings beat once, twice, and then the thing was out through the gap in the boards.

In the morning there was frost on the gap, and in it a thin trail of curls and little marks leading out across the white field towards the road. Your father looked at it over his mug and said nothing, which from him was a blessing. You went out with the hammer and broke the ice, and this time you left the marks where they were.