Black ink drawing of an ornamental swirl with three dots and the word CONFIDENCE in capitals beneath, on a white background.

Swirl flourish with dots and the word confidence

Black and grey · Flash

A tattoo design drawing showing a bold, looping ornamental flourish that curls into a spiral at the top and bottom, with three small dots placed around it. The word CONFIDENCE is written in small capitals below the swirl. The linework is solid black with a slightly rough, brushed edge, and the design sits on a plain white background with no colour.

Swirl Flourish Dot Spiral Word

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Hush now, the lot of you, the kettle's not boiled and I've only the one good story left in my apron pocket, so you'll have to sit still for it. This is about Thaddeus Pell, parish clerk of Wenlow, who could not hold a pen without it trembling like a leaf in the rain.

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Every morning before the church doors opened, he sat at his high desk with the window propped and practised one stroke over and over on the backs of spoiled paper. It started small, swung out wide, then curled inward on itself, tight as a snail, before rolling back out again. Wherever his nib stopped to breathe, he let three little blots fall like crumbs from a loaf, and he never once wiped them away.

The day of the miller's wedding, Hester Gale and young Owen Tranter, the register had to be signed in front of the whole village, and Thaddeus's hand went to water at the sight of all those faces. He was halfway through the Ts when Mrs Ruddock, who had never said a kind word to anybody in forty years, leaned over the pew rail and murmured, 'It doesn't have to be neat, Mr Pell. It only has to go round and come home.'

So he did. He made the great loop across the page, curled it in, let the ink pool where it wanted, and when he lifted the nib the bride laughed out loud and said it was the boldest signature she'd ever seen in Wenlow. Thaddeus never shook again after that. Beneath the entries he wrote the word confidence in small square capitals, and it is still there in the parish chest, if you care to look.