Black and grey realism tattoo of a raven with outstretched wings across a man's left ribs, photographed in black and white with his shirt lifted.

Raven on ribs in black and grey

Realism · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A large raven is shown mid-flight or landing, with wings spread wide and talons extended, drawn in detailed black feathers. The tattoo covers much of the side of the torso, with fine shading and highlights in the plumage. The photograph is black and white, with the shirt pulled up and a cluttered domestic background behind.

Realism Ribs Raven Bird Wing Feather

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The cook aboard the herring boat Marrow had fed the bird scraps for three winters before it ever landed on the rail with its wings still open, as if it had been caught halfway through a decision. Ruth Calloway was the only one aboard who didn't flinch when it stepped onto the gunwale and fixed her with one eye.

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The men called it the Dunmoor bird because it had come off the moor road the spring the old laird drowned. Nobody sailed on a Tuesday with a raven aboard, and nobody said so out loud. But the bird had a habit. On any morning the nets came up heavy, it would lift off the stern, circle the mast twice, and drop its talons onto the coil of rope nearest the galley hatch. That was the signal to haul the eastern net and leave the western one alone.

One November the bird came down hard and would not lift. It stood on the galley step with its wings flung out and its talons open, and it screamed at the sea until Ruth went up on deck with a knife and a bucket of cold tea. The boat hung there, rocking over nothing. Then the mist thinned, and the western net showed a lantern bobbing on the swell, a rowing boat with two men lost in the fog.

They hauled the men in before the tide turned. That night Ruth fed the raven the last of the mackerel and told it nothing, as was proper, and by morning it had gone from the rail. She still leaves a crust on the step each dawn, and the Marrow, they say, has never once been caught out in the fog.