Traditional-style flash design of a lantern with a gold flame, three moths and banners reading LIGHTS, WILL, GUIDE and YOU HOME, with no body placement shown.

Lantern with moths and banner lettering

Traditional · Colour · Flash

A lantern with a gold flame sits at the centre of the design, with a banner above reading WILL and GUIDE and a banner below reading YOU HOME, and the word LIGHTS set in block lettering across the top. Three moths are arranged around the lantern, with short radiating lines suggesting light. The linework is bold navy with gold fills and white highlights on a flecked grey background.

Traditional Lettering Lantern Flame Moth Banner Lettering

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The snow had come early that year, and by the second week of December the lane between Hobb's Gate and the top farm was a white trough you could lose a cart in. Mary Pell kept the lantern on the windowsill every night regardless. Her husband thought it a waste of paraffin and said so at supper, but she only trimmed the wick and set it where the glass caught the frost.

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Moths were scarce in winter, which was why the three of them surprised her the night the wind dropped. They came out of nowhere and settled on the lantern's cage as though it were the only warm thing left in the county. Mary watched them fan their wings against the glass, gold where the flame touched them. Her husband shook his head. 'Pests,' he said. 'They'll be in the bread by morning.'

Her son Daniel had walked to the market in Ashby that morning and promised to be back by dusk. Dusk came, then full dark, then a sky so clear the stars looked hard as nails. Mary stood at the window with her hand flat on the cold pane. The moths shivered and lifted, all three at once, and turned towards the lane.

Half an hour later a figure came stumbling out of the white, following a line of pale wings that rose and dipped above the drifts toward the one steady light in the valley. Daniel reached the gate with his hat gone and his fingers blue. Her husband drew the bolt and said nothing at all, which Mary knew was as near to an apology as he would ever give. She left the lantern burning all that winter.