Black and grey tattoo of a raven perched on a shaded skull with exposed teeth, on freckled skin.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Raven perched on a skull

Other · Black and grey · Photo

A raven with hatched, feathered plumage perches on top of a large skull with a shaded eye socket and a row of visible teeth. The linework is dense and sketch-like, with cross-hatching used for the bird's feathers and the dark areas of the skull. The image is in black and grey on a plain background of skin, with the subject centred and fully in frame.

Other Raven Skull Teeth Bird

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Sit down, the lot of you, the soup can wait and so can your manners, said old Mab Carrow, rapping her stick on the trestle until the bridesmaids stopped giggling. This is about a raven called Corvin, who sat on the churchyard wall every morning and watched the grave-diggers eat their bread. He had a beak like a bread knife and opinions about everyone.

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The year the sexton died, the parish needed a new man with a spade, and the only one who would take the job was Hob Teague, who could not read but could keep his mouth shut. Corvin took a liking to him. Each dawn Hob shared his crust, and each dawn the bird repaid him, dropping something bright on the wall: a brass button, a thimble, once a coin with a queen's face worn smooth. Then came the teeth. Small and white, one for every honest year Hob dug, set in a neat row on the flat stone where the bird liked to sit.

Hob was old when the bird came for his last crust. He sat on the wall to meet it, and Corvin hopped down beside him, looked long at the hollow in the old man's cheek, and laid one final tooth at his boot, the way a man settles a debt in full. Hob laughed until he coughed. He always said it was the only fair trade he ever made.

So when you bury your dead, leave a crust by the gate, and mind the wall. Corvin has long memories and longer beaks. Mab lifted her cup. To Ruth and Daniel, and to whatever bird is watching the cake.