Black and grey tattoo of a horned woman with a raven perched on her horns and dark leaves below, on a forearm, in a realism and blackwork style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Horned woman and raven on a forearm

Realism · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A horned woman with a stern expression is shown from the shoulders up, with a raven perched on one of her horns and a bare branch to the left. Below her, dark leaves and ink drips fill the lower part of the design. Smooth shading and bold solid black areas create contrast, with no colour ink visible.

Realism Blackwork Forearm Raven Leaves Ink drip Portrait

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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

You have kept the lamp lit at Hollin Cross for eleven winters, and in all that time the 4.10 has never stopped for anyone who was not already standing on the platform with a ticket in hand. So when the rain thins at dusk and a woman steps down from the last carriage with a raven on her shoulder, you assume she has wandered off the coach road, and you reach for the bell.

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She does not want the coach road. She sets a coin on your counter, an old one with a hole punched through its middle, and asks which way the line runs back to the sea. You tell her the line runs only one way from Hollin Cross, and that is up the fell. She smiles as though you have confirmed something she already suspected. The raven shifts its weight, and a black feather drifts down onto your ledger, settling across the column where the late trains are written.

She asks for nothing but the timetable. You hand it over, and she runs one long finger down the page, past the cancelled services and the halts that closed in the sixties, until she stops at a line in your own cramped hand: the 4.10, Hollin Cross to the sea, marked with a cross. She taps it twice. The raven makes a low, unhurried sound, and somewhere beyond the fence the signal wire begins to sing.

At first light the platform is empty and the bench is dry. Your ledger lies open at the same page, and beneath the old entries there is a new one in your handwriting, which you do not remember writing: one passenger, destination the fell, fare paid in full with a coin that has a hole through its middle.