Neo-traditional tattoo of pine-covered mountains inside a circle with moon phases, on a forearm, with a small orange medallion below.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Mountain, pine and moon phase circle on a forearm

Neo-trad · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A circular design shows snow-capped mountains and layered pine trees in green and grey, with a row of moon phases and two birds across the top. Bold black outlines and soft shading give the forest and peaks depth, and a dotted ring frames the circle. Orange and green leaves curve beneath an orange medallion with a small mountain glyph, and other tattoos are partly visible at the top and bottom edges.

Neo-trad Forearm Mountain Pine tree Moon phase Bird Leaves Medallion Circle Forest

Find an artist for this

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

The abbot sent Brother Oswin up the north path the week the snow came early, with a bronze disc in his sleeve and orders not to stop until he reached the cell above the tree line. Nobody at the monastery of Saint Ruth had gone past the third waymark since the winter the bell cracked.

Keep reading

The path ran through pines so thick the light came down green and grey, the way it does under water. Oswin counted the phases of the moon as he climbed, because the old men had taught him that the moon tells a traveller how long he has left before dark. Each night it was a little fuller than the last, and each night the two ravens that followed him circled lower, as if they were counting too.

At the cell he found a woman sitting on the step, mending a net with fingers as stiff as roots. She did not look up. She said the abbot had been sending boys for forty years and none of them had ever brought the disc back to the place it came from. Oswin held it out. She took it, turned it so the mountain mark faced the sky, and laid it on the threshold stone, where it sat in the first thin light like a small sun settling into a valley.

He came down with empty hands, and the bell rang true when he reached the gate. The abbot asked what had kept him. Oswin said only that the mountain had wanted its medal back, and the old man laughed until he coughed, because he had always known the disc was never his to wear.