Two matching black and grey owl tattoos on twisting branches with leaves, on the inner forearms near the wrists, with both fists raised.

Matching owl and branch forearm tattoos

Botanical · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

Two forearms are shown close together with fists raised, each bearing a matching owl perched on a thin, curving branch with small leaves. The linework is dark and fairly bold, with some shading on the owls' feathers and faces. The ink is solely black and grey, set against plain skin and a pale, blurred background.

Botanical Forearm Owl Branch Leaves Bird Matching pair

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Old Mair Tennant kept two owls in the pit-head loft at Cwm Ddu, and she said they had come down the shaft the winter the Gethin seam flooded. Nobody believed her, because owls do not go down holes, but the night shift swore the birds knew when the roof would talk. Before a fall they would drop from the rafters and sit on the lamp hooks either side of the lamp room door, turning their heads like clockmakers.

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Her grandson Evan was the only one who sat with them. He was nine, and he brought them mice from the bakery bins in a paper twist, and he learned that the left owl always went first and the right owl always looked back. When the colliery closed in the spring, the men carried their tin boxes down the hill, and the owls stayed where they were, because nobody had thought to take them.

The summer after, a bough came down in the wood above the old tip and Evan climbed up to see it. Lying in the bracken was a length of hazel that had grown into a curl, and on it someone had carved two small owls, one turned towards the other. Evan carried the bough home under his arm and told his nan the owls had been waiting for the mine to close so they could fly out of it.

Old Mair looked at the carving for a long time, then set the kettle on the range. "They were never going to stay in the dark," she said. "They only wanted a branch to watch from." She took her boots down from the hook and went out to the yard to find a spade.