Traditional colour tattoo of a brown cow head with yellow flowers, green leaves and the words WE ARE ALL EARTHLINGS, on the back of a lower leg.

Cow head with flowers and lettering on a calf

Traditional · Calf · Colour · Photo

A brown cow's head faces forward at the centre, framed by a red halo, with yellow five-petalled flowers and green leaves on either side and below. Bold black outlines and smooth colour fills give it a classic traditional look, and the phrase WE ARE ALL EARTHLINGS curves across the top and bottom in black script. The design sits centrally on the leg, with the lettering framing the image.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Hester had her head through the gate again when the rain started, and Nell stood in the mud with the feed bucket and tried to remember who had first said the thing about the sign. It was painted above the barn door in her grandfather's careful capitals, though he had never been a man for speeches. Dad said it was a line from a Sunday school hymn book. Gran said she'd heard it on the wireless, and that the cows had been arguing about it ever since.

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Hester let herself be coaxed off the lane with a mouthful of cake, her great brown face dripping, her lashes heavy with rain. She had a white curl of forelock that stood up whatever the weather, and she looked at Nell the way she looked at everyone, as if they were a puzzle she had already solved and was too polite to mention.

The bottom field had flooded in the night. Nell waded down it with the bucket knocking against her knee, calling the others by name: Bramble, Old Pearl, the twins from March. They came because they always did, lowing and shoving. Hester came last, slow, and when the water reached her belly she stopped and would not go on. Nell understood then that she was waiting, that the herd had been brought home by a cow who knew the way out.

They climbed the slope together, the bucket forgotten and the rain easing off. At the gate Nell turned and read the words over the barn door again, the ones that curved like a ribbon, and thought that perhaps the sign had never been about cows at all.

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