Small black anchor tattoo on the ankle, with a rolled denim cuff and a leopard print fabric behind the leg.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Small anchor tattoo on an ankle

Fine line · Ankle · Black and grey · Photo

A small, solid black anchor with a ring at the top sits on the side of an ankle. The linework is simple and clean, with the shank and flukes filled in dark ink and no shading. The pale skin contrasts sharply with the rolled denim hem above and the busy leopard print fabric beneath, which draws attention to the small motif.

Fine line Ankle Anchor

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

On the night the fog came up the river, Mab Tully went down to the lower steps with a lamp and a coil of tarred rope, because the ferry bell had rung three times and nobody on the quay would answer it. The ferryman, old Joseph Greave, had lost his own anchor years before to the mud under the bridge, and since then the boat had drifted on the flood like a leaf. Everyone said the river would not hold a boat that had no anchor to answer to.

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Mab had a small iron anchor in her apron pocket, no longer than her finger, that her grandmother had forged from a ship's nail on the night of the great frost. It was black with age and its ring had worn smooth from handling. She knotted it to the end of the rope, leaned out over the wet stone, and let it down into the water while she said the name of every boat that had ever tied up at Salt Quay.

The ferry came out of the murk with its lantern swinging, and Joseph Greave saw the little anchor catch the lamplight as it lay on the surface, holding the boat still in the current. He threw her a line, and she made it fast to the bridge ring, and the fog thinned around them until the far bank showed like a drawn pencil line.

They still tell it on Salt Quay. Every ferryman since has kept a nail in his coat, and on foggy nights the steps are lit, just in case someone is out there listening for the bell.