Fine line black tattoo of a howling wolf with ornamental swirling lines trailing below it, on the inside of a wrist.

Howling wolf with swirls on a wrist

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A small wolf head is shown mid-howl, muzzle raised and eyes closed, with its body dissolving into curling, flowing lines. The linework is fine and dark, with soft grey shading along the neck and chest of the wolf. The design is centred on the inner wrist against a pale skin tone and a grey pavement background.

Fine line Forearm Wolf Howling Swirl Flourish Scrollwork

Find an artist for this

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 fog came off the water so thick that Skipper Dunn had to shout the hauling count twice, and you still heard the howl before anyone named it. It rose from the east end of the bay, long and wavering, the kind of note that climbs and then can't decide where to come down. Tam crossed himself with a wet glove. Dunn only lifted his chin and said, 'Grey Ada's out again,' as if she were a neighbour who kept late hours.

Keep reading

You had heard the story at your first Lent, when your hands were too raw to hold a mug: a she-wolf who swam out from the Carrow rocks when the nets came up light, and sang the boats home on the one note the sea had no answer to. Nobody on the Vesper had ever seen her. What they saw was the wake. On calm mornings the foam off the stern pulled into long curls that looped back on themselves, and the men swore those curls were her mane, combed out by the tide.

That morning the nets came up heavy with mackerel, and the fog thinned to a silver lid. You stood at the rail with the knife in your belt, watching the water fall away in threads, and you began to hum the note back, low, the way your grandmother hummed when the lamp smoked. Dunn didn't turn. He just tipped the tiller a finger's width to starboard, toward the sound.

At home you tied the last hank of twine into a knot with a loop at its end, the same flourish the old women put on their hems, and hung it by the door so the next boat out would know the way you'd come. The howl did not come again. But that week the gulls followed the Vesper in lazy loops, and nobody on the quay could say which way they were leading.