Black and grey realism tattoo of an owl set in a yin yang circle, with a barn owl style pale half, on the upper thigh.

Owl in a yin yang circle on a thigh

Realism · Thigh · Black and grey · Photo

A large owl's face and eye fill the right side of a circular yin yang design, with its feathers drawn in fine detail. The left half is a pale, speckled feather pattern, and the central dot is a dark circle set in a light ring. The work is shaded in black and grey with stippled dots, and the circle is centred on the outer thigh.

Realism Dotwork Thigh Owl Yin yang Feather Eye

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The owl came back to the mill on the third night of the gale, just as you said she would if I kept the loft door open. I did what you asked and left the sacks split on the floor so the mice would have something to argue over. She sat on the beam with her dark side turned to the sea and her pale side turned to the yard, and I understood, watching her, why Father always said the two halves were one bird that could not decide which way to face.

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Your ship was due in on Tuesday, but the harbourmaster sent word that the Maud Ellery had put back to the Tyne with a broken foremast. So the letter you have not written will have to be the one I write for you. Mrs Cale at the chandlery says the men off that boat talk of nothing but a white owl that flew over their bows off the Farne, pale as salt, though I suspect a gull and a good deal of rum.

On the fourth morning I climbed up and found the dark owl gone, only the pale one left, fluffed against the cold, and a single grey feather lying on the flour. I kept it. The round hole in the gable where the old pivot pin sits looked like the dot at the centre of Father's sign, black inside a ring of light, and I thought of you out on the water, turning slowly around something you could not see.

Come home on the next tide, or send word. The owls will split the night between them whether we are here or not, and I would rather be told which side you have taken than guess it from the rafters. Your sister, Ada.