Black lettering reading Vagabond on the back of a woman's neck, shown from behind with her hair pushed up and a pale blouse with a tied back.

Vagabond lettering on the back of the neck

Lettering · Neck · Black and grey · Photo

A woman is photographed from behind with both hands in her dark hair, showing a small word tattoo on the back of her neck. The tattoo is a single line of plain, bold capitals in black ink with solid, even strokes and no shading. The soft pink blouse, pale grey wall and tied back in the foreground keep the palette neutral and the composition simple.

Lettering Neck Word Woman Hair

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The bride's mother had counted the chairs twice, and still there was one more guest than seats. The fiddler from Calder Ford had brought his cousin, the cousin had brought a grey mule, and the mule had eaten the lilies off the gatepost before anyone thought to stop it. Nobody could say who had invited the stranger in the brown coat who stood at the back of the barn with a tin cup and a rolled bedsheet under one arm.

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Old Tamsin Reeve, who had buried two husbands and was not afraid of anything with boots on, marched down the aisle of hay bales and asked him what he wanted. He said he wanted nothing but one dance and a dry corner for the night. She told him a vagabond was a man who belonged to no road, and he laughed and said it was the first true thing anyone had said to him all year. He took the cider she poured him and drank it standing, as if he were waiting for a train that had already left.

The bride's brother, who had been sulking since the banns were read, said the stranger would steal the silver. The stranger said he had never stolen anything he could not carry on his back, and the silver was too heavy for that. So they set him to carrying the trestle tables out to the field, and when the rain came he was the one who knew to lift the cloth before it soaked through. By dusk the brother was asking him about the coast.

At midnight the bride found the stranger alone by the gate, looking at the road. She asked if he meant to leave. He said a vagabond never leaves, he only moves on, and a wedding was a good place to be standing between two roads. She wrapped a slice of cake in a napkin and pressed it into his hand. In the morning the gatepost had fresh lilies on it, the tin cup was gone from the barn, and nobody in the valley saw the grey mule again either.