Fine line black tattoo of a stylised celtic-style knot with a central spiral, on the inner side of an ankle.

Thin line knot tattoo on an ankle

Fine line · Ankle · Black and grey · Photo

A small black tattoo of a stylised knot with three looping leaf-like lobes and a central spiral sits on the inner side of a bare ankle. The linework is a single thin, even black line with no shading or fill. The photograph is taken at an angle with the foot raised, and the blurred indoor background is neutral and soft.

Fine line Ankle Knot Spiral Celtic knot Leaf Line drawing

Find an artist for this

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

"Hold the end while I go round again," Mrs Aske said, and I held it with my fingers numb inside my brother's gloves while sleet came sideways across Long Acre and the ewes pressed against the hurdle like a dropped coat. The gate had frozen to its post at the top corner. She had already tried breath, then spit, then the flat of her palm, and now she worked the baler twine with the patience of someone who had lost arguments with weather for fifty years and won most of them.

Keep reading

"Three leaves," she said, not looking up. "My grandfather showed me on a feed sack in the barn. First loop, then the second crosses it over, then the third goes under both and comes back to where you started. The middle is the bit you pull." She drew the tail through the centre and the whole knot rolled into a small, tight spiral that sat on the wire like a clock stopped at noon. "Everyone wants to pull the outside. That only tightens it."

The wind lifted the gate and it knocked against the post. I flinched, and she laughed at me, a short bark the cold took straight out of her mouth. Then she pulled the spiral. The twine slid loose in one clean run, the gate swung free, and the ewes shuffled through into the lee of the barn as though they had planned it all along.

Walking back up the lane, I looked behind me. The loose twine still hung from the post, its three leaves furred white with frost, and in the grey light they looked the same as they had on the feed sack, waiting for somebody to need them again.