Black tribal-style tattoo of curling swirls and a small dot on the forearm, in a bold blackwork style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Tribal swirl tattoo on a forearm

Blackwork · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A bold black tattoo of stylised curling swirls and tapering strokes sits on the skin, with a small dot and a curved mark at the lower left. The linework is solid black with no shading, and the design is contained in the centre of the frame. The skin shows freckles and fine texture, and the image is shown in natural light.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Brother Anselm had been copying the Gradual for eleven years, and his hand still shook when the abbot came to look over his shoulder. That morning it was steadier, because the calf was cold and the ink had thickened in its pot, and a man who has to warm his ink learns to move slowly. He dipped the quill, touched the parchment, and let the first stroke rise like a sigh before it curled back on itself.

Keep reading

The novices called these marks neumes, but Anselm thought of them as weather. A tall stroke was a rising wind. A dot was a stone dropped into still water. The small curved mark beneath it told the singer to hold a breath a little longer than the others. For three weeks he had been drawing one stubborn figure, a spiral that unwound into a sweep, because the cantor had asked for a passage in the Lenten office that nobody in the choir could sing without faltering.

On the last morning of the copying, the cantor came down to the scriptorium with a lamp and a bad cough. He sang the phrase aloud, slowly, tapping the desk where the curl turned. The sound climbed, paused on the dot, and folded down at the end like a bird settling its wings.

"There," the cantor said. "That is where they breathe."

Anselm blotted the page, closed the book, and went to find his supper, which was the first meal he had eaten in a week without thinking about the next line.

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