Black script reading This too shall pass across the upper back, with birds flying from a dandelion seed head in a black lettering and botanical style.

This too shall pass script with dandelion on back

Lettering · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A black ink script reads This too shall pass across the upper back, close to the shoulder blade. Small silhouetted birds and drifting dandelion seeds rise from a dandelion head at the lower right, leading the eye along the line of the words. The ink is solid black with no grey shading, and the photograph is taken in soft natural light against a pale background.

Lettering Botanical Back Script Dandelion Seed Bird Quote

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Sit yourself down on the cabin step, and mind the coal bucket, it's the only thing on this boat that keeps still. You'll have heard of the king and his ring, the one with words cut inside it that made every wise man go pale. No? Then listen, for my grandfather told it to me on this same towpath, and he never once got the ending wrong.

Keep reading

The king wanted something to keep in his pocket for the worst days and the best ones alike, so the jeweller was sent for, and a clever old fellow from the water-mills came up with a motto short enough to fit under a thumbnail. The king read it, sat down on the nearest step, and didn't get up for an hour. Down by the lock that May the meadows had gone gold, and by June every bank was a fuzz of white clocks.

One morning the king's little girl came running along the towpath with a dandelion clock in her fist, and she blew it with all her lungs. The seeds went off over the cut like a fleet of tiny sailors, and a flock of sparrows rose out of the hedge to chase them. The king watched them scatter and asked the wise man what he'd meant by his clever motto. The wise man only laughed and pointed at the water, where one seed had settled on the surface and was turning slowly, unbothered, towards the lock.

My grandfather always stopped there, same as I'm stopping now. Then he'd take the pole, push us off the bank, and say the ring had worked on the king every bit as well as it worked on the rest of us. Mind that rope, Tom. We're going through.