Solid black stylised tree design with curling branches, roots and seven eight-pointed stars above, a blackwork-style flash drawing with no body placement shown.

Stylised tree with seven stars

Blackwork · Black and grey · Flash

A solid black silhouette of a stylised tree with a straight trunk, spreading tiered branches ending in curls and scrolls, and a splayed root base. Seven eight-pointed stars sit above and beside the crown. The design uses bold, uniform black fills with no shading or grey tones, on a plain white background.

Blackwork Tree Star Branches Root Scroll

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell, the big top came down in Carlisle on Tuesday, and I'm writing this on the back of a ticket stub because the paper ran out somewhere near Penrith. Harold wants the canvas sold to a scrapyard in Hull, which is a shame, because the old man painted that tree himself the winter before the war, and it's the only thing on the tent that still looks like it means something.

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Seven stars over the crown, he always said, one for each town that had ever kept us, though I've counted the stars and the towns and they never agree. The curls at the ends of the branches were the bit the children loved. They'd point and say the tree was dancing. The roots spread out across the sawdust like a hand dropped flat on a table. Every night for thirty years the lamp men lit the ring beneath it, and nobody thought to look up.

Last night I climbed the centre mast with a torch in my teeth to unpick the old pennant, and found that the seventh star had been painted over in grey by someone who lost their nerve. Underneath, small, in the old man's hand: Come back when the tree is bare. I don't know what it means and I suspect he didn't either. Harold says it's a joke about the wages.

I'm keeping the star. I cut that patch out with my pocket knife and it's folded in my boot. If you're ever near Hull, come and find me, and bring your own knife. Love, Tom.