Neo-traditional raven perched on a branch on the upper arm and shoulder, framed by red and blue flowers and leaves.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Raven with flowers on upper arm

Neo-trad · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A large raven sits on a branch across the upper arm and shoulder, shown in grey shading with bold black outlines and feather detail. Red and blue rosette-style flowers with green leaves fill the space around the bird, with an orange crescent behind it. The colour is bold and saturated against the grey of the bird, and the image is a close, angled view of the arm.

Neo-trad Traditional Upper arm Shoulder Raven Bird Branch Flower Leaves Moon

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Snow had been falling on the pass for nine days when the raven came down the chimney of the Three Larks and landed on the cold hob. Mrs Teague swept it out with the bellows and it flew straight back up again, feathers smelling of soot, and sat on the rafter above the settle as if it had paid for the room.

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Nobody at the inn had a name for it. The carter said it was the same bird that had sat on the gatepost at Hollin Cross the winter his mule died. The tinker said a raven perched on a branch under a crescent moon meant a debt would fall due before the thaw. Mrs Teague told him to mind his own debts. But she left the back window unlatched so the bird could come and go, and she set bread on the sill every morning.

On the sixth night a stranger came up the track with a lantern and no horse, asking for a bed in the name of a man who had died owing her money. The raven dropped from the rafter onto his shoulder, pecked once at the buckle of his coat, and flew to the door. It waited there with its feathers ruffled, looking back at the two of them.

Mrs Teague took the lantern from the stranger's hand. "Go on, then," she said to the bird, and followed it out into the blue dark, where the moon hung low over the drifts and the frost on the windowpanes had grown into rosettes of red and blue ice.