Colour tattoo of a stylised orange lion with a dark outline beside the script words Hakuna Matata, on the inner forearm.

Lion and Hakuna Matata script on a forearm

Lettering · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A stylised lion in orange and tan is outlined in heavy black, with a curved mane-like line sweeping over its back and a hint of shading along its body. Beside it, the words Hakuna Matata are written in black flowing script with a slight slant. The lion uses soft, blended orange shading against pale skin, and the composition sits across the forearm on a light blue fabric background.

Lettering Forearm Lion Script

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Maud Carrick clipped the yew lion every second June, as her father had before her. This year the tail had grown shaggy and uneven, the sweep of the mane gone to brown lumps where the shears kept missing. She stood on the wooden stepladder with the long-handled shears, the lawn below still wet from the night's rain, and listened to the radio on the potting bench murmur about the coming heat.

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Her grandson Tomas had come up from London with a sketchbook and a bag of salt-and-vinegar crisps, and he sat on the low brick wall pretending not to watch her. "You're meant to leave the tail," he said. "Grandad always left the tail."

"Grandad left it because he was idle. He told everyone it was for the birds."

Tomas grinned and went back to his drawing. Maud looked at the slate by the side gate, where her father had painted the words in black enamel the summer the hosepipe ban came in. Hakuna Matata, he had said, grinning at her over the top of his glasses. It means no worries. It had been a lie, she thought now. He had worries enough, most of them about the hedges and the rain, and he had painted the slate anyway, as if the words could hold the garden up on their own.

She lowered the shears and let the tail stay as it was, a little wild along its curl. Tomas looked up, surprised, and then bent to his page again. When she came down the ladder the sun had found the marigolds along the path, and the lion sat in the bed with its shaggy tail catching the light, as if it had been waiting all along for someone to stop fussing.