Back view of a shaved-headed man with a realistic red-mouthed snake tattoo across his back, with colourful floral and grey Japanese-style sleeves on both arms.

Realistic snake across a full back tattoo

Realism · Back · Mixed · Photo

A man seen from behind shows a large realistic snake tattoo across his back, its head rising over his right shoulder with bared fangs and an open red mouth. The shading is smooth and detailed, with soft grey tones on the scales and a strong red and pink glow in the mouth. Colour sleeves with roses and leaves cover one arm, and grey clouds and flowers cover the other, set against a busy colourful backdrop.

Realism Japanese Back Upper arm Forearm Snake Fangs Rose Flower Cloud Leaves Sleeve

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The ferryman's daughter would not cross the river at Sallow Ford until the snake had been fed, and nobody in the valley could say when that custom started. Her mother said it was older than the mill. The grey serpent lay in the reeds on the far bank, thick as a drowned oak, and every spring it lifted its head and opened its jaws wide enough to swallow a lamb whole, the inside of its mouth glowing like a coal raked out of the hearth.

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Tomas, who drove geese to market along the Sallow road, laughed at this. He had a sack of salt pork and a pocketful of coins, and he told the toll-keeper he would pay the snake himself. The toll-keeper, a thin man with roses painted up the sleeves of his coat, only nodded at the water and said the snake did not take coins.

Tomas waded out at dusk with the pork held over his head. The serpent rose out of the river slowly, its scales catching the last light like pewter, and it regarded him with eyes the colour of lamp oil. He held up the meat. It took the meat, then the sack, then the lead goose that had followed him in, and it sank its head back into the reeds without a sound.

Next morning the toll-keeper was at his post as usual, taking the crossing fee from every traveller who came. Not one of them asked him what the snake had been given, and he never offered to say.