Black line tattoo of a pine tree, a ribbon banner reading Prone to Wander and fern-covered hills on the forearm, with a small red accent.

Pine tree and banner on a forearm

Botanical · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A black linework tattoo shows a tall pine tree rising above a ribbon banner that reads PRONE TO WANDER, with fern fronds and a rounded hill below. A tiny figure stands on the hill and a small red mark sits beside the banner. The lines are even and medium weight, with open areas of skin, and the design is centred on the forearm against a dark leather background.

Botanical Lettering Forearm Pine tree Fern Banner Text Hill Figure Landscape

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

Sit down, sit down, the back row can stand if it likes but it won't see the lamp. Right. This is about Tobias Crane, who was prone to wander, as his mother wrote on every shirt she sewed him, and who believed a man could walk out of any town by simply not looking back at the church spire.

Keep reading

He walked out of Hollin Vale on a Tuesday with a loaf and a tin whistle. By the Thursday he had reached the fern country, where the bracken stands higher than a child and the paths close behind you like a mouth. A woman was sitting on a stile there, shelling beans into her apron. She asked him where he thought he was going. He said nowhere in particular, which was the only answer he had ever been good at. She laughed, the way you laugh at a dog that has lied to you, and said that nowhere in particular was a place with its own rules, and the first was that you must plant something before you leave it.

So Tobias pushed a pine cone into the peat with his thumb, and went on, and the hill behind him grew a tree the height of a church roof before he had counted ten of his steps. He turned round to see it. There, small as a lost button on the hilltop, was himself, looking back.

The old tale says he never came down. The tree keeps his name in its needles, and the ferns lie flat around its roots so no one can find the path home. Every wanderer who has passed through this fair has a bit of that hill in their pockets, I daresay. Now, who's buying the ginger beer?