Black and grey botanical tree tattoo with small green and yellow accents on the inner forearm of a person holding another person's hand.

Tree tattoo on a forearm

Botanical · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A tree with branching limbs, layered leaves and exposed roots is tattooed on the inner forearm. The linework is fine and the leaves are shaded in grey, with two small touches of green and yellow among the foliage. The arm is shown in soft focus against a street, with a second person's hand clasped in theirs.

Botanical Fine line Forearm Tree Leaves Root Branches

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Brother Cuthbert had been sent out to fell the old pear in the cloister garth before the autumn visitors arrived, and he carried the saw across the wet grass with the air of a man who had been asked to do something sensible. He found the roots had already gone under the wall, through the drains, and into the cellar where the cider barrels sat. Two of the lay brothers were standing in the doorway with their hands in their sleeves, looking at the cracks in the stone as if they might be asked to explain them.

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The prior asked him why he had not cut it. Cuthbert said the roots were holding the wall up, which was true, and that the tree was older than the chapter house, which was also true. The prior did not argue. He sent for the old book instead, the one with the water stain on its spine, and read aloud how, in the hard winter of the year the bell was cast, two travellers had come to the gate in the snow. One was a wool merchant's daughter from the valley towns. The other was a runaway from the fens with no shoes. The porter had one loaf and gave them half each, and in the morning they went down the icy path holding hands over the stile, because neither of them would go first. Before they left, the fen girl pressed a pear pip into the abbot's palm and told him it would grow if he forgot about it.

The tree had grown ever since. In spring it leafed from the root side first, and the brothers said that was how you knew it had its own opinions. Its fruit came in two colours. Yellow ones were given to whoever had come to the gate that year and found someone to walk back with. Green ones were kept in the larder until they were ripe enough to be eaten by anybody at all.

Cuthbert stood a long while with the saw resting on his boot. Then he leaned it against the wall, reached up into the lowest branch, and came away with a pear that was green on one side and gold on the other. He took a bite, gave the rest to the nearest lay brother, and went back to the gate to see who was waiting there.