Black and grey realism tattoo of a lion's head with a full mane on the back of a clenched hand, beside a gold signet ring and a gold chain ring.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Lion head tattoo on a clenched hand

Realism · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

A clenched hand, photographed close up against a dark background, shows a realistic lion's head tattoo across the fingers and knuckles. The shading is black and grey, with soft tonal gradients in the mane, fine detail around the eyes and nose, and a darker outline. Two gold rings are visible on the other fingers, one a signet ring with a engraved emblem and the other a chain-link band.

Realism Hand Lion Lion head Mane

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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The lion over the gatehouse at Harrowmere came down in the night of the storm, and Mr Pryce has set me to sorting the fallen stones by hand. That is how I came to be sitting on a broken block with a mouthful of cold tea when I found his face. Half of the muzzle had gone and his mane was a crust of lichen, but the eyes were still cut clean, two almond hollows with the lids drawn low, as if he had been dozing in the sun and did not care to be disturbed.

Pryce says the mason who carved him was a Flemish man who left the castle the year the roof fell in, and that he kept his chisels in a leather roll with a brass seal pressed into the flap. Nobody remembers his name. The steward's ledger lists only "the lion man" and a payment of four shillings, which Pryce thinks was short even then.

I wanted to bring the head home to you, but it weighs more than the cart. So I have made a rubbing instead, pressing thin paper over the mane and working it with a stick of charcoal. It has come out black and soft at the edges, every whorl of the stone showing through like weather over a moor. I have pinned it above my bed, where the candle catches the nose.

Tell Father I am eating properly and that the masonry will hold until the thaw. I will be home before the swallows, if the scaffold does not give way first.

Your loving brother, Tom