Black and grey realism tattoo of a howling wolf inside a dreamcatcher with feathers and teal beads, across a woman's upper back.

Howling wolf dreamcatcher on upper back

Realism · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A howling wolf head sits inside a fine-lined circular dreamcatcher frame, with black dots and three shaded feathers hanging from thin cords. The wolf and feathers are rendered with soft grey shading and dark accents, while the circular web is drawn in clean, thin black lines. Small teal beads add the only colour, and the design spreads across the upper back with the feathers trailing down towards the lower shoulder blade.

Realism Back Wolf Howling wolf Dreamcatcher Feather Bead

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The wind has been shoving at the pass since before light, and by the time you reach the cairn your fingers have stopped belonging to you. Ilse is already ahead, her grey back bobbing between boulders, and when you call her name into the snow it comes back to you thinner than you sent it.

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Your grandmother's willow ring hangs from your pack strap, a hoop laced with cord, two dark feathers knotted to it and a few blue-green beads she swore would keep the bad weather off. You never believed her. But when the cloud drops and the path vanishes, you find yourself counting the feathers instead of the steps, because she told you a dreamcatcher holds on to the dreams you need and lets the rest blow out through the middle.

Ilse stops on the lip of the ridge and lifts her muzzle. Her howl goes out long and cracked, and for a moment there is nothing but wind. Then from somewhere below the cloud a second voice rises, older and thinner, and the hound's ears swivel toward it as if she has been waiting her whole life to be answered.

You follow the sound down the scree on your heels, the ring knocking against your spine. In a hollow lined with juniper, Matthias Brand sits with his back to a boulder and his crook across his knees, grey-faced and grinning at the dog. He says he thought the wolves had got his sheep and then him. You tuck the loose feather into his collar, help him to his feet, and walk back up the pass with the wind at your back, certain now which of your grandmother's stories was true.