Black and grey dotwork and blackwork tattoo of mountains, pine trees and a crescent moon within an ornate frame, on a calf.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Mountain, moon and pine tree calf tattoo

Blackwork · Calf · Black and grey · Photo

A crescent moon and three star shapes sit above two mountain peaks and a row of pine trees, enclosed in an ornate scalloped frame with antlers at the base. The mountains and trees are filled with solid black, while the sky and background use fine stippled dotwork shading. The design uses only black ink and greys against pale skin, photographed straight on.

Blackwork Dotwork Calf Moon Crescent moon Mountain Pine tree Forest Star Antler Frame

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mab had counted the pines on the ridge every evening since the big frost, because her father said a man who knew his trees would never be lost in them. Forty-one from the chapel gate to the stile, forty-two if the crooked one by the spring still stood. Tonight she counted forty and no more, and the moon was already hanging over Carrow Scar like a paring somebody had dropped.

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The stag had come down off the mountain two days before. Nobody in Ashby Dale had seen one that size since the old men were boys, its antlers spread wider than the lych-gate, and it moved through the wood as if the trees had been planted to let it pass. Her brother Tom swore it had looked at him. Her mother said that was the stag's business and Tom's imagination, and set another bowl of broth on the sill for whoever came knocking.

Mab went up the path alone at dusk with her father's lantern and a tin of tallow. She found the stag at the top of the stile, standing in the blue light with a snare wire wound through one tine. She did not run. She had learned that from her father, who had learned it from the mountain. She set the lantern down, spoke low, and cut the wire with the small knife she used for splitting kindling.

When she turned back, the moon had climbed clear of the scar, thin and bright, and three stars had come out beside it like pins in a map. The stag was already moving up toward the peaks. Mab counted the pines once more, forty and then the crooked one, and walked home under the frame of the trees with the lantern swinging, knowing the count was whole again.