Black and grey ornate owl design perched on a bare branch, with filigree and a Celtic knot on the chest, shown as a tattoo design without a body placement.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Ornate owl on a bare branch

Blackwork · Black and grey · Flash

A front-facing owl perches on a bare, twiggy branch, with wide staring eyes and a crescent moon in the ornate filigree across its head. The feathers and chest are built from dense blackwork, dotted shading, scrolling filigree and an interlaced Celtic knot. The design is rendered in black ink on a plain light grey background with no colour.

Blackwork Dotwork Owl Branch Celtic knot Filigree Moon Feather

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mrs Pardoe never let a lodger take the back room above the kitchen, and she never told us why until the summer the Harcourt boy came with his brother's debts and a hat he would not take off. We kept the books for Saltmere House, my sister Enid and I, in a ledger with a cracked spine that smelt of brine and boiled cabbage. Every night at ten I walked the cliff path to count the lamps on the pier, and every night the owl was there on the dead sycamore, facing me with those round, unblinking eyes, as if I owed it a receipt.

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Its branch was bare as a bone, and the crescent moon cut into its forehead always seemed to be a day behind the real one. Mrs Pardoe said her grandfather had nailed the bird to that tree, carved from a bit of wreck timber, because he wanted something on the headland that would not drown. I believed her about as much as I believed the tide tables, which is to say I checked them twice.

The Harcourt boy went out on the cliff path the night of the big blow. Enid found his hat on the bottom step, dry as a biscuit, and the back room was empty with the window open. We searched the rocks until the lamps went out along the front.

On the third morning the owl had turned its head to face the sea. I did not tell Mrs Pardoe. I just opened the ledger and wrote his name in the column for paid, because somebody ought to be owed something by this house, and it was the least I could do.