Black and grey dotwork tattoo on the outer thigh showing a stag and owl head split down the middle with wings, above a triangle and circle motif.

Split stag and owl head with triangle on thigh

Dotwork · Thigh · Black and grey · Photo

A large black and grey tattoo on the outer thigh shows a stag head and an owl head divided down a central vertical line, with antlers on one side and owl wings spreading out on the other. Above, a triangle enclosing a circle and a vertical line sits between fine dotted chevrons and arrow shapes, with a smaller repeated triangle motif below the head. The shading is built from stippled dots and fine hatched linework, and the tattoo is centred on the thigh against a plain light background.

Dotwork Geometric Thigh Stag Owl Antler Wing Triangle Circle Geometric Dot

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You will think I am being foolish, Nell, but the old gatepost at Hollin Farm finally came down in the gale, and under the lichen we found the carving. Your grandfather always swore it was only a split stag, the sort the old men cut for luck. It is not. Half the face is a hart with its antlers still sharp, and the other half is a barn owl with its eye shut against the morning.

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Mr Ashdown from the parish knew the story. Two wardens once shared the valley. The stag kept the day woods and the owl kept the dark ones, and they met each year on the ridge where three stones stand in a triangle. Each brought a ring of salt and walked it round the stones. The owl could not bear the sun and the stag could not bear the dark, so they agreed to keep one face apiece, and they cut it in two so that neither could forget the other.

One spring a flood shifted the ridge stones and the ring of salt went missing. The stag came down to the village alone, thin and grey about the muzzle. Your great-aunt Hester, who was always bolder than sense, took the owl's feather from the lintel and climbed up at dusk. She found the owl sitting on the middle stone, waiting for someone to bring the other half of the bargain.

I will not tell you how that bargain ended, because Hester never did. She came home at first light with salt in her hair and said only that the valley had two keepers again, and that we should leave the gatepost alone. So we did. Come at Easter and see it for yourself, and bring the salt.