Traditional style tattoo of a snarling skeletal wolf with a bold black outline and red tongue, across the side of a torso on the ribs.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Skeletal wolf on the ribs

Traditional · Ribs · Mixed · Photo

A snarling wolf with a visible skeleton, including a ribcage and spine, is tattooed along the side of the ribs and curves up towards the back. The design uses thick black outlines and bold black shading for the fur and tail, with grey tones on the body. Small areas of red, orange and yellow appear on the tongue, eye and claws against the pale skin and a stone wall in the background.

Traditional Ribs Wolf Skeleton Ribcage Spine Tail Tongue Claw

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The Morag came ashore on Tuesday, or what was left of her. The sea had taken the timbers and the paint off her bow, and what the tide left on the shingle below the chapel was a wolf of bone, ribs cracked and spine still hooked together, the head turned back as if something had caught it by the scruff. Father wanted to burn it for the copper nails. I stood in front of the cart and said no, and he looked at me the way he looked at you the morning you went down to the Lark.

Mrs Pringle, who keeps the chandlery, said the paint on the jaw was still red. It was. Whoever carved that wolf had given it an open mouth and a tongue like a hot coal, and the sea hadn't managed to wash the colour out of the grin. I carried the skull home in a fish crate and set it on the mantel beside the clock.

Here is the part I've not told anyone. Last night the wind came round to the north-east and the shutters started knocking, and I swear the spine rattled in its crate like a dog wanting out. I went down to see. The wolf was only bones, of course. But the eye, the one painted amber, was catching the lamp, and it looked very much as if it was waiting for someone to come home by the harbour road.

Come home by the harbour road, Tom. Mind the third step on the quay. Bring the cloth for the copper.

Your sister, Nell