Black linework tattoo of a bare tree with cats perched on its branches and a crescent moon above, on a forearm.

Cats in a bare tree on a forearm

Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A tall, leafless tree with thin branches runs vertically up the arm, with several black cats sitting on and hanging from its limbs. A crescent moon outline curves at the top, and a cat sits on its tip. The design is drawn in solid black ink with simple outlines and little shading, set against pale skin.

Forearm Tree Cat Moon Branches Crescent moon

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Don't you stand there dripping on my cloth, Ada, and mind the pears, the lad with the cold has already sneezed on the lot. Shift along and I'll tell you the one about the ash tree at Hollin Cross, because the rain always pulls it out of me.

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That tree had nine branches, and every cat in the parish had a claim on one. Old Mother Pennock's black tom lay along the lowest limb like wet washing, and the ginger twins fought over the crook where the wind couldn't reach. When the moon came up thin over the chapel roof, the cats climbed to the very top and sat on the crescent's tip, one grey hooligan staring down at the whole village as if he'd hung the moon himself.

Then came the winter the coal boats stopped running. Oswin Garside, the tinsmith, was cold to the bone and he had a saw, so he went up the lane at dusk to take the tree for firewood. He found the cats waiting, every one of them sitting perfectly still on their branches, not a whisker moving. He stood there with the saw in his hands until the moon slid behind the church and his lantern guttered out. He went home with nothing but splinters in his palm.

He came back the next night with a lantern of his own making, and hung it from the highest fork. Every night after, the cats sat round it like a hearth, and the tree never lost a single limb. If you walk up to Hollin Cross tonight, count them. Nine branches, nine cats, and one moon that nobody ever looks at properly. Now, who wants a pear?