Pencil and ink flash drawing of a small perched bird on a faceted diamond, framed by flowers, leaves and scrolling ornament.

Wren on a diamond with flowers and scrollwork

Traditional · Black and grey · Flash

A line drawing of a plump songbird perched on top of a faceted diamond, with a tail feather extending to the left. Surrounding the diamond are rounded flowers, leaves and sweeping acanthus-style scrollwork inside a rectangular border. The work is drawn in fine black linework with light pencil shading on the feathers and body, and it is uncoloured.

Traditional Botanical Bird Songbird Diamond Flower Leaves Scroll Border

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You are sixteen the spring the ferry stops running to the island, and the only work left in Porthavon is at Teague's pawn counter behind the chandlers. Mr Teague sorts rings into tins by weight and says nothing about the wren that comes in through the open back door each morning to sit on the scales.

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The wren wants the stone. Every day it lands on the brass loupe stand beside a cut diamond the widow Sayers pledged in March and never collected, and it turns its head so the light breaks across its breast. You tell Mr Teague it is bad luck. He tells you birds have no interest in debt, only in shine, and that a wren weighs less than a sixpence, so the stone is safe.

In June the widow dies and the diamond goes into the window to be sold. Nobody buys it. On the last Friday the wren hops onto the sill, tugs at the velvet with its beak, and then flies off over the breakwater with one tail feather poking out like a pencil behind an ear. You watch it pass the lifeboat shed until it is only a speck above the water.

That evening the window is bare. In the ledger, in Mr Teague's cramped hand, there is an entry for one diamond, redeemed, with no name against it. A small brown feather lies on the scales. You keep it in your apron pocket. When the gulls start up over the harbour, you still check the rail for a small round shape, and you are never disappointed for long.