Large black and grey sketch-style moth tattoo across a person's upper back, with small pink flowers on the shoulder.

Moth tattoo across upper back

Back · Mixed · Photo

The photo shows the back of a person with dark hair in a loose bun, viewed from behind. A large moth fills the upper back, drawn with loose, sketchy linework and heavy dark shading on the wings, with radiating lines and small geometric shapes around it. Small pink flowers on the right shoulder add a touch of colour to the mostly grey design.

Back Moth Wing Flower Sunburst Geometric shape

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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

Pull your stool closer, the lamp will last one more tale if nobody breathes on the glass. Do you see the moths gathering there? The grey ones with the stone-coloured wings? My grandmother's grandmother kept the shelter at Sorrow Pass, where the road climbs through the scree and the snow arrives early in August, and she used to say the moths were the pass's own memory, carrying the names of everyone who had ever been caught out on it.

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There was one called Ysolde who could not stop climbing toward light. Each evening, when the sun dropped behind the ridge, a ring of pale rays would open in the cloud above the far valley, and she would fly straight at it, counting the spokes as she went. The shepherds swore she had a face like a saint's window, and wings cut like shards of slate with little river stones set into them. Her lantern had gone cold long ago, which is why she hunted the brightest thing she could find.

One November a girl called Maud came up the pass carrying her father's lamp, because he had fallen sick at the lower farm and someone had to bring the salt. The wind took her hat and the path vanished under drifting snow. Then Ysolde came out of the dark and settled on the lamp's brass rim, close enough that Maud could see the small eyes on her wings. Maud did not run. She followed the moth step by step, and the moth flew only as far as the lamp could reach, never once faster.

So when a grey moth taps at your window in winter, do not shoo it out into the cold. It is not hungry for your flame. It is only looking for a light bright enough to lead it home, and it will often settle on whoever is carrying one.