Realism and abstract blend tattoo on a man's chest and shoulder, showing a black raven on thistle stems with a flying bird, red and grey bands and Latin lettering.

Raven and thistle across chest and shoulder

Realism · Chest · Mixed · Photo

A shirtless torso shows a large black raven perched on thistle stems across the chest, with a second bird in flight on the shoulder. Fine shading and realistic feather detail contrast with loose grey and red horizontal bands, a scroll-like Latin inscription and a row of small characters below the stems. Ink is almost entirely black and grey, with a red line and a grey-green band as accents.

Realism Botanical Chest Shoulder Raven Crow Bird Flying bird Thistle Branch Latin text Banner Lettering Stripe

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

In the kingdom of Brannock, where the bells were rung by hand and the thistles grew taller than the bell-ropes, the old king kept a raven named Tallow in an iron cage. Each morning he let the bird out to perch on the thistle stems in the south field and count the hours aloud. At each hour Tallow struck the gate bell with his beak, and over forty winters he had worn a bright notch into the bronze.

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The night the miller's daughter fell sick, the physician climbed the tower with a candle and a grave face. He said the child had only so many hours left in her, and that every hour would wound her a little before the last one finished her. The king told Tallow to stay silent until dawn, so that no stroke would be sounded and no hour spent. The raven sat among the thistles and said nothing, and the moor filled with a silence no one in Brannock had ever heard.

At first light the king climbed the tower himself and found the bird hunched against the frost. He asked why there had been no chime. Tallow answered in the king's own rasping voice, as ravens do: 'Every hour wounds, and the last one kills. I only count them. I never chose which one was last.' The king stood a long time at the parapet. Then he went down and ordered the great bell rung for the girl, every stroke of it, until the thistle heads cracked open with frost and the raven rose from the field and flew south over the wall.