Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Snaffle bit on the wrist

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A small snaffle bit, drawn as a simple outline with two rings joined by a central bar, sits on the wrist. The linework is thin and uniform in black ink with no shading. The tattoo is centred on a pale hand and forearm against a plain dark grey backdrop, which keeps the focus on the design.

Fine line Forearm Ring Outline

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The mare would not take the bit on the night the lamps went out along Tanner's Row. Tam Greave stood under the iron arch of the yard with the bridle over one arm and tried her twice, and twice she flung her head away towards the canal wall, where the water sat black and still below the lock gates. Mother Ruddock came out in her nightgown with a shawl pulled over it and watched from the doorway without a word, which was how Tam knew it was serious.

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'It's the old bit,' she said at last. 'Your grandfather's. He left it in the lock on the night he went under, and the water has been keeping it since. Every horse that has worn it since has had a mouth that wouldn't settle. Take it down and give it back to the canal, and don't look behind you on the steps.' Tam took the lantern from its hook and went down the slick stone, past the rusted mooring rings, to where the silt lay soft as bread. He found the bit by feel: two iron rings joined by a bar, cold as a pair of wedding bands left out in frost.

He held it over the black water and the water went flat, the way a held breath goes flat, and he let it slide from his fingers. Up in the yard the mare gave one long, clean whinny. When he climbed back with his heart going, she was standing quiet in her stall with her head low, and she took the bridle from his hand as easy as bread from a child. He did not sleep that night, and he did not look at the bridle for a long while.

Every night since, when a horse in the city grows restless after the lamps are lit, somebody in Tanner's Row goes down to the lock with a lantern and listens for two small rings knocking together under the water.