Black linework tattoo of a lion head with a mandala crown and geometric lines, with dotwork shading, on a forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Geometric lion head on a forearm

Geometric · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A lion's head sits centre frame, drawn in black single-weight outlines with a mandala-style crown behind it and long geometric lines that run down to two diamond-tipped arrow shapes. Dotwork stippling shades the muzzle, brow and mane, while the rest of the design is open linework. The tattoo is shown in black ink on pale skin, photographed from the front against a soft grey background.

Geometric Dotwork Forearm Lion Lion head Mandala Arrow Geometric line Crown Dot

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The third night of the drifts, Mirren saw the lion standing at the bottom of the pass. Its mane was crusted with snow, and round its head sat a crown of sharp, layered leaves, like a lamp that gave no light. Her father had already counted the loaves twice that day. He said the road was shut and nothing with sense would be walking it. Mirren took the broth pot off the hook anyway.

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The lion did not come into the yard. It sat by the gatepost with its forelegs straight, and when she set the bowl down in the drift it lowered its head and drank without spilling a drop. Its eyes were ringed with small dark dots, like frost on a window pane. In the morning a carter came up from the valley, half frozen, and swore he had seen a line of light laid across the snow ahead of him, straight as an arrow, ending in a point. He followed it down to the stone bridge, which was still standing. Two wool merchants came the next night saying the same thing.

On the seventh night a man arrived with a sack and a saw, and he asked Mirren where the lion kept its gold. She told him the lion kept nothing but its own counsel. He went out to the gatepost with a lantern and came back without the sack, pale as the snow, saying the place was empty except for a pair of arrows scratched into the stone.

Spring came late that year. When the road cleared, Mirren's father repainted the inn sign with a lion wearing a leafy crown, and he never could say who had shown him the shape. The bowl was still on the gatepost, licked clean.