Black tribal-style drawing of a howling wolf in front of a dreamcatcher, with feathers hanging from the hoop, as a tattoo design.

Howling wolf and dreamcatcher design

Blackwork · Black and grey · Flash

A wolf with its head raised and mouth open, howling, sits in front of a circular dreamcatcher with a web pattern and small dots. Feathers hang from the left side of the hoop and sweep down beneath the wolf, with swirling flame-like shapes beside its neck. The design uses bold solid black linework and filled shapes on a cream background, with no colour.

Blackwork Wolf Howling Dreamcatcher Feather Swirl Hoop

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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

The wolf came down off the hill the week the gas lamps were switched off for good, and by the time the bells of St Ebba's struck midnight it had reached the iron bridge over the Sallow. Nobody in Marrowby opened a window. They had been told wolves follow sorrow the way smoke follows wind, and the town had plenty of sorrow to feed one.

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Old Tamsin Rook was the only one who went out. She carried a hoop of willow she had woven years before for a grandson who had gone to sea and not come back, its web of cord knotted with four bone beads, and a single grey feather tied to its lowest point. She had kept it on a nail above the stove because it was the only thing in the house that still caught the light.

The wolf stood in the middle of the bridge with its head thrown back, and its howl was not the cry of a hungry animal. It was the sound a town makes when it has been holding its breath too long. Tamsin lifted the hoop. The wolf stopped. Its eyes, which had been the colour of wet slate, went soft at the edges, and the curls of its mane lifted and turned like smoke caught in a draught.

She did not ask it what it wanted. She had lived long enough to know that a wolf which comes to a city at night is only looking for the one place it was promised. She hung the hoop on the parapet, feather down, and walked home without looking back. In the morning the willow was gone, the feather lay on the bridge, and the Sallow ran clear for the first time since the mill closed.