Tagin are the little crownlets that make much of the difference between what is merely Hebrew block lettering and what one sees in the holy texts (K’tav Ashurit). No-one quite knows what these embellishments really mean (though I have developed some theories over time) and the Rambam argues that their absence does not invalidate the writing as the core of the letter form is there. However, the halachah dictates that certain letters should have these decorative flourishes, which the sofer creates by drawing ink upwards from the roof of the letter with the very thin tip of the quill (or down from little blobs towards the roof of the letter).

The famous mnemonic is Sha’atnez Gats showing the letters that have three tagin. Others only have one and some have none at all.

One of the readers of my off-line articles questioned why the upside-down kuzo phrase on the reverse of my first m'zuzah (see diary 3) had tagin as she had not seen this before. In fact the omission of the entire phrase itself would not make the m'zuzah pasul (invalid) and having checked on-line with a sofer in Israel, there is no halachic statement as to whether there should be tagin or not. His view is that there normally are - though many small m'zuzot don’t have - indeed many of these have no, or very poorly formed tagin in the text.

Tagin perhaps represent the scribes best chance of individual expression and shows that despite the vast amount of rules and regulations the individualism of the scribe can shine through. I have used this to good effect in my m'gillot where when there are two or three letters with tagin together you can create a sort of bridge or rainbow effect. Considerable creative license can be seen with the splayed or dotted tagin that can be seen below, though some sofrim would frown on such a thing.