Black ink drawing of a triquetra Celtic knot surrounded by curling swirls and dots, shown as a tattoo design on plain white paper.

Triquetra knot with ink swirls design

Black and grey · Flash

The drawing shows a three-looped triquetra knot at the centre, with its interlaced bands drawn as outlined black lines with white gaps. Calligraphic swirls and small dots radiate outwards from the knot on all sides. It is rendered in black ink on a pale background with no shading or colour.

Triquetra Celtic knot Swirl Dot Knotwork

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Oswin, the thaw came early to Merrow Vale, and with it the three rivers rose over the bridge stones again, so I have spent four days on my knees in the mud with Tamsin and her measuring chain. You will laugh at the state of my cuffs.

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The map you asked for is nearly finished. Where the Ellen, the Sorrow and the little Wend meet, the old surveyors drew a knot, three loops passing over and under one another so that no loop can be lifted free. Tamsin says it is only a crossing for the carters, but the millers of Bellhaven swear it is the place where the water first remembered its course. Each river curls away from it in a loose spiral, and the eddies are marked with dots where the boatmen lost their oars.

Last night I traced the lines twice in ink, because the copper plate kept smudging. The eddies look like handwriting when you squint, a flourish after every signature. I have decided to write the names of the three rivers into the knot itself, so that anyone who unrolls this sheet in the Assembly will have to untangle them before they accuse me of drawing the wrong road.

Come home by midsummer if the fords allow it. Bring the good ink from Sorrowgate, and tell your mother the goat is not, despite her letters, a witch. Your friend, Hal.