Black and grey woodcut-style tattoo of a moon over pine trees, clouds and logs with a seated figure, on the calf.

Woodcut forest scene with moon on a calf

Calf · Black and grey · Photo

A large black and grey tattoo covers the calf, showing a night landscape with a full moon framed by tall pine trees and curling clouds. Fine hatched and cross-hatched lines give the engraved, woodcut look, and the foreground has fallen logs and grass with a seated figure or rock in the centre. The composition is symmetrical and fills the leg from ankle-side to knee, with the dark tree shapes giving strong contrast against the pale skin.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom, the last up train came through at ten past eleven, and I stood on the platform with the lamp turned down low, the way you asked, so you could find the halt from the ridge road if you came down in the dark. Nobody got off. Mr Halloran from the goods yard says the timber gangs will be sending the sawn logs down on Thursday's freight, so you may be home before the frost, and I told him he was no judge of anything but gossip.

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The moon has been sitting over the cutting every night this week, as round and flat as a coin somebody forgot to pick up. The stacked logs at the end of the platform have gone silver along their bark, and the pines on the far side look as though they are standing guard over nothing. I have taken to sitting on the big one nearest the points, the one with your initials cut into it with the penknife, because the bench by the signal box is too cold for my knees and the stationmaster keeps looking at me as if I might take the lamp home.

Last night a boy came up the embankment carrying a fiddle case and asked which way the logging road ran. I pointed him towards the trees and told him to mind the cutting. He thanked me, then stopped and asked whether I was waiting for someone. I said I was waiting for the freight, which was not true, and he tipped his cap and went off whistling, and I sat on the log a long while after with the lamp between my feet.

I have left the lamp lit tonight. Come down the ridge road when you can. I will be on the log.

Yours, Nell

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