Colour tattoo of a cartoon fox on a tree stump and a hound dog among red autumn leaves, with a pink flower, across a person's upper back.

Cartoon fox and hound in a forest on upper back

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A cartoon fox sits on a tree stump beside a pink and yellow flower, while a hound dog looks down at a small orange fruit among red leaves. The trees behind are shaded in grey with bold dark vertical strokes, and the figures have soft, outlined shading. Warm reds, oranges and browns dominate, with grey used for the forest background.

Back Fox Dog Flower Leaves Forest Autumn

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The hound had been promised the fox for three autumns, and by the third he had stopped believing the men who promised it. Bramble lay under the beeches each morning with his chin on his paws, listening to the crows argue over the mast while the huntsman swore at him from the gate. The fox never ran far. She sat on the stump of a felled oak as though someone had set it there for her, licking her lips and watching him fail with a patience that was almost polite.

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One October the wind stripped the last haws from the hedge and the leaves came down in rust and rose. Bramble found a single orange berry rolling under the ferns, bright as a lamp, and nosed it across the moss until it stopped beneath the stump. The fox leaned over to see what the fuss was about. 'That's no use to a fox,' she said. 'It's no use to a dog either,' said Bramble, 'but it's the only thing in this wood that isn't a rabbit or a shout.'

They struck a bargain before the frost came. The fox would sit on the stump each morning where he could see her, and Bramble would keep his nose in the leaves and never once follow her over the ridge. In return she brought him a berry at dawn, which he ate slowly, because a hound who has chased for years learns that a thing you can keep is worth more than a thing you can catch.

When the huntsman came up the lane with his horn that afternoon, he found the hound asleep by the stump, the fox curled on the warm wood above him, and a scatter of red leaves laid over both of them like a blanket. He blew the horn twice. Neither of them stirred, and for once nobody in the wood ran.