Black ink tattoo of an ornate elephant with a skull below it on the upper thigh, with a small sun and crescent moon on the legs and an ornamental forearm tattoo beside it.

Elephant, sun and crescent moon on thighs

Blackwork · Thigh · Black and grey · Photo

A large black ink design of an ornate elephant over a skull covers the upper thigh, with heavy solid lines and dense shading. A small fine line sun sits on the other thigh above a simple crescent moon, and an ornamental mandala style piece is visible on the forearm. The image is black and grey, with a white dog and floral bedding in the soft background.

Blackwork Fine line Thigh Forearm Elephant Skull Sun Crescent moon Mandala

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Keep the lamp low and walk where the elephant walks, children, because she has crossed this pass more times than any man in our valley, and the snow has already taken two mules since the thaw. Hear that? That is the bell on her neck. As long as it rings, she is sure of her feet. When it stops, you stop too, and you do not go ahead of her, however clever your boots feel.

Keep reading

My grandfather told me about the elephant's mother, who carried a dead trader over this ridge in a wooden box lashed to her back. The trader had sworn he would reach the far town before the snows, and he did not, so the box carried his skull and the sun and moon painted on its lid, one for the day he set out and one for the night he meant to arrive. The elephant wore that box for forty winters, and the cold never once made her kneel.

Now listen, because this is the part that matters. On the high saddle the wind came off the ice and the light went grey, and the drovers began to panic and shout. Old Rinchen stood in the path, lifted his hand, and said nothing. The elephant lowered her great head, the bell went quiet, and the mist parted. Ahead of us the sun was rising on one side of the peak while the moon still hung on the other, pale as a coin in the water.

We crossed in that half-light, every one of us, and not a soul went over the edge. When we reached the bottom of the far valley, Rinchen turned round to look up at the saddle. The elephant had already begun to walk again, bell ringing, and the sun was climbing like a man who has finished his business at last.