Black and grey realism tattoo covering a full back, showing a raven perched on bare branches above a skull among roots, with script down the right side.

Raven and skull tree on a full back

Realism · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A large tattoo covers the whole of the back, showing a raven perched on twisted bare branches with its wings partly spread. A skull sits among gnarled roots at the base of the design, and lines of small script run down the right side. The work uses fine shading and smooth tonal gradients in black and grey, with the branches drawn as dark, sharp linework against the skin.

Realism Back Raven Crow Bird Tree Branches Skull Root Script Text

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The rook man came up from Hexworth on Tuesday with his cart, and he says the oak behind St Aldhelm's is finished, that the sap has gone out of it for good. I told him to leave it standing anyway. Mother would have skinned me for saying so, but the raven has been sitting in the top fork since Michaelmas, and I find I don't mind the company. It watches the lych gate the way Mr Pryce watched the bank.

When they dug Walter Haig's grave in March, the spade turned up a skull among the roots, brown as a walnut and grinning like it had been waiting. Nobody would take it. Reverend Lowe had it wrapped in sacking and set on the vestry shelf, beside the parish register with the lines someone scratched on the flyleaf. I copied them out for you, since you always said my hand was too neat for poetry: "Who keeps the tree keeps the tally, and the bird brings the count home." I have no idea what it means.

Last night the bird came down and took the page I'd left on the lychgate post, the one with my copy on it, and carried it up into the branches. I stood there in my nightdress like a fool. This morning the paper was pinned in the fork, pale against the black bark, and the raven was picking at the words as though it could read them.

Write back soon, and tell me whether the city has put up any lights yet.

Love, Eve