Black and green drawing of a stylised horse head with a swirling mane, shown as a design on a white background.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Swirling horse head design

Mixed · Flash

A stylised horse head drawn in bold black linework, with the mane formed from curling, tapering strokes. Green shading runs along parts of the black lines, and the design sits centred on a plain white background.

Horse Horse head Mane Swirl Tendril

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

At the wedding at Tanner's Ford, the bride's father counted the guests twice and found one more than he had asked for. The stranger stood by the lychgate with a black horse on a rope. Its mane did not lie flat. It curled up from the withers and along the neck in long tapering strokes, and where the light caught it, green ran up the edges like sap after rain.

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Nobody asked his name. The vicar's wife asked what the horse would eat, and he said it would take whatever the bride was given. So they set a plate of bread and salt before it at the trestle table, and the mane leaned down and took the crusts one by one, curling each piece up into the green until the plate was bare.

When the fiddler struck up the reel, the horse lifted its head and the tendrils swept out over the lane. They lifted the bunting from the hedges and caught the bride's veil and drew it up like a kite string. The bride did not scream. She walked out into the lane, took the rope from the stranger's hand, and said that a horse which ate at a wedding must be given a place at it.

The stranger bowed and went off down the river meadow with the horse beside him, its mane streaming behind. The veil came down in the willows at the ford, and every spring after that the willows put out green threads that curled toward the water.