Black and grey photo of the phrase 'this too shall pass' in fine line script tattooed on an ankle.

Script quote 'this too shall pass' on an ankle

Lettering · Ankle · Black and grey · Photo

A bare foot and ankle rest on a patterned fabric, with the words 'this too shall pass' written in thin, single-line cursive across the skin. The linework is clean and even with no shading, and the ink is dark grey to black. The photograph is in black and white, with the text running horizontally across the centre of the frame.

Lettering Fine line Ankle Phrase Quote Script Text

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The old well-keeper of Carrowmore had a saying for every bad season, and the one he gave his daughter the winter the river froze was this: the water will move again. She did not believe him. She carried buckets up the hill from the frozen trough every morning, her breath hanging in front of her, and she counted the ice on the lintel of the byre the way other girls counted coins.

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One night a stranger came down the lane with a satchel of tools and a lamp that burned blue. He asked for a bed and she gave him the settle by the fire, because her father was asleep and the rule of the house was that no one was turned out in frost. In the morning he opened his satchel and showed her a roll of thin black thread and a needle no longer than a barley grain. He said he would write something on her if she wanted it, something to carry through the hard months, and that it would stay as long as she did.

She thought about it all the way to the trough. Then she sat on the step, pulled up her skirt to the ankle, and let him work while the sun came over the Ox Hills. He wrote slowly, one curl after another, and it did not hurt the way she expected. When he had finished he held up a cloth so she could see the words: this too shall pass.

The thaw came four days later, loud and sudden, the river tearing at its banks. She stood at the trough laughing with her bucket in her hand and watched the ice break up and carry off towards the sea. Her father never learned who had written on her, and she never told him that his saying had been on her foot the whole time.