Neo-traditional tattoo of a unicorn head in a gold and red bridle with bells and tassels, shaded in grey with colour accents, on the upper arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Unicorn head in ornate bridle

Neo-trad · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A unicorn head wearing an ornate bridle hung with bells, pearls, chains and red tassels fills the frame, set within a gold-outlined panel. The horse's face and muzzle are shaded in soft greys with realistic detail around the eye and nostril, while the harness uses gold, red and cream colour. The design is shown from a side angle on a limb, with the tattoo filling most of the composition.

Neo-trad Realism Upper arm Unicorn Horse Bell Tassel Pearl Chain

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Somewhere under the hatch the bells were still ringing when I cut the chain. Eleven of them, brass and dull silver, all of which I had polished that morning with a rag and a little vinegar, and now the storm was rolling them across the boards like dice. Master Corvell had bought the mare in Lisbon from a dealer who swore the horn was narwhal ivory, and the crew had crossed themselves every time she turned her long grey face towards them.

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The bridle was the count's idea, meant for a gift in Genoa that nobody aboard expected to deliver. It was a web of cord edged in gold, with red tassels at the cheek and strings of cream pearls I counted each evening as though they were coins. Corvell wanted the harness kept whole for sale, so when the wave took the foredeck and she thrashed in her lashings, he ordered every man to leave her alone.

I disobeyed him. The pearls had dragged the head down and the chain had wound about her jaw, and in the lantern light I could see her eye rolling white. I drew my knife and sawed through the leather, and the whole ornamented thing slid off into the black water with a sound like a dropped bell. She came up snorting, the horn bright as bone, and swam beside the ship until the grey dawn, her bare head held high.

Corvell never forgave me the loss. But in the spring a fisherman from the Sound brought a string of pearls up in his nets, cream and perfect, with a single red tassel knotted through. He asked two shillings for them. I paid him four and kept the tassel in my coat, where it still smells faintly of salt.