Black and grey full back tattoo of a dragon over a heart shield, framed by Celtic knotwork, runes and skulls, in a Realism style on the back.

Full back piece with dragon and Celtic knotwork

Realism · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A large full back piece shows a dragon coiled around a heart-shaped shield, with interlaced Celtic knotwork flowing across the shoulders and sides. Rune-like symbols run along the lower panel, above a scroll of lettering and two skulls set in wispy clouds near the waistband. The work uses fine linework with soft grey shading and no colour, and the composition is symmetrical and fills the whole back.

Realism Back Dragon Heart Shield Celtic knot Rune Skull Scroll Lettering Cloud

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Brannoc had been feeding the dragon since the ninth day out of Ardglass, and by the tenth morning the galley smelt of scorched oats and wet rope. The beast lay coiled round the iron shield that hung above the hearth, its tail knotted through the rafters the way the carpenter had knotted the rigging. Nobody had invited it aboard. It had come up the anchor chain on the night of the storm, all teeth and grey smoke, and had simply stayed.

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"Eat," he told it, and pushed a bowl of salt herring across the flagstones. The dragon lifted its head and looked at the bowl, then at the letters scratched into the pantry door, the names of the crew who had gone over the side in the winter. It snuffed once. "They're not for eating," Brannoc said. "Those are the men we lost, and you'll not have the last of them." The dragon laid its head on its forelegs, and for the first time in days the galley was quiet enough to hear the hull creak.

On the eleventh morning the lookout cried land. Brannoc climbed the ladder with the dragon's shadow sliding up the stairwell behind him. The coast was grey and low, and on the headland stood a stone cross ringed with the same knotwork that wound down the dragon's neck. The old men knew it at once. It marked the churchyard where Brannoc's mother was buried, and the sea had been eating at that headland for thirty years.

The dragon went over the rail without a sound. It took the bowl in its jaws as it went, and Brannoc watched it wheel toward the cross with the smoke trailing off its back like a banner. When the cloud closed over it he went below and found the pot still warm. He ladled the broth out for himself, and for once he did not count the crew before he sat down.