Two black and grey tattoo transfer designs on a white wooden surface, a coiled snake above and a running fox below, both drawn with realistic shading and placed on no body part.

Snake and fox tattoo transfer designs

Realism · Black and grey · Flash

Two separate tattoo designs are cut out and laid on a white wooden surface: a coiled snake with its head raised, and a fox running low with a bushy dark tail. The snake is drawn with fine scale texture and soft grey shading, while the fox has feathered fur strokes and deeper shadow along its tail and legs. Both designs are black and grey and are arranged with open space between them.

Realism Snake Fox

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The baker's boy had been warned about the fox long before he came to the ovens. Every grandmother in the valley told it the same way: keep the shutter closed until the loaves are out, or the fox will take the first one and the snake will take the second. Nobody said what the snake would take after that.

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Tobias came down the hill road at four with his hands in his pockets and frost on his collar. The bakehouse was dark except for the firebox, which glowed red through its grate. Old Mrs Pell had left a note pinned to the flour bin: knead the rye, watch the fox, mind the snake under the step. He read it twice and laughed at the last line, then stopped laughing when he saw the fox sitting on the windowsill, its tail curled round its feet, eyes like two wet coals.

It did not run. It watched him lift the first tray of bread and set it on the rack. When he turned to fetch the salt, he heard the faint dry rustle of scales across the stone floor, and then a fox's patient cough, which was the nearest thing a fox had to a laugh. He understood then that the two of them had made their bargain long before him: the fox took what was hot, the snake took what was owed, and the baker's boy was only the one who had to decide which was which.

At dawn he broke the last loaf in half and set one piece on the sill and one by the step. The fox ate its share in three bites and was gone over the wall. The snake lifted its head from under the step, looked at the bread for a long while, and slid back into the dark without touching it. In the morning Mrs Pell found the offering untouched and nodded, as though it were a fair price.